Palm Beach, FL 3/14/12 (StreetBeat) -- Shares of Cliffs Natural Resources (NYSE: CLF) jumped more than 4 percent before the market opened Wednesday, after it more than doubled its quarterly cash dividend.Cliffs has grown rapidly through acquisitions in recent years and now has a wide variety of strong projects. As a result, the company said, it's now focusing on organic growth and returning value to shareholders.
Citi analyst Brian Yu backed his "Buy" rating and $96 target price for Cliffs.
"We welcome the dividend hike and official organic growth pledge, although management already deemphasized mergers and acquisitions following the Consolidated Thompson acquisition last year," Yu wrote.
The Cleveland mining company announced late Tuesday that it was bumping its dividend to 62.6 cents, from 28 cents. The new dividend will be paid on June 1 to shareholders as of April 29.
"We believe that a philosophical commitment to this payout level and to growing the dividend is manageable through the cycle and sustainable at varying levels of prices for the commodities we sell," said Laurie Brlas, Cliffs' chief financial officer, said in a statement.
Shares of Cliffs Natural Resources Inc. rose $3 to $67.91 in premarket trading.
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