With the current slide in the share prices of most S&P/ASX 200 Index (INDEXASX: XJO) companies, it is reassuring to review top performers over the past year to put the current market correction into perspective.
Share markets do go through major corrections from time to time. But over the long-term, history shows that markets always perform strongly and on average, have grown by around 10% over the past few decades.
With that in mind, let's review one of the top-performing ASX large-cap shares over the past 12 months: Northern Star Resources Ltd (ASX: NST).
Northern Star is a gold production and exploration company with key sights in Western Australia and Alaska. At the time of writing, the Northern Star share price has grown by 59.4% over the past 12 months, which places it in the top three best-performing large-cap shares on the ASX 200.
Strong reputation as a world-class gold miner
Over the past decade, Northern Star has evolved to be the major miner in Kalgoorlie region in Western Australian and has gained a reputation as one of the top gold miners globally, with operations also in Alaska.
Northern Star has a strong management team in place and has developed a skill over the past decade of extracting high value from its acquisitions and also making clever investments. For example, Northern Star purchased Plutonic Gold Mine in 2013 when the gold market was going through a major downturn but then managed to sell it three years later when the industry went through a boom period.
I believe that Northern Star is in a strong position to grow its operations at the KCGM Super Pit in Kalgoorlie, which it now co-owns with Saracen Mineral Holdings Limited (ASX: SAR), backed by a world-class team of underground mining specialists.
Solid recent financial results
Northern Star's recent strong share price performance compared to its peers has been driven by a solid set of first-half results for FY20. The gold miner recorded total sales of $827 million during the half, which was up a very strong 31% over the prior corresponding period.
Northern Star's earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) for the six-month period grew 45% to $322.3 million. Meanwhile, its underlying net profit after tax (NPAT) grew even more strongly by 53% to $139.4 million.
The ASX gold miner had very strong cash flows of $344.5 million. This positioned Northern Star with $274 million in cash at the end of last year, and its interim dividend was raised by 25% to 7.5 cents per share. The company also believes it is on track to meet its FY 2020 guidance.
