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Nov 19 (Reuters) - Johnson Matthey, the world'sbiggest maker of metal catalysts for car emission controldevices, announced on Thursday it will pay 305 million pounds($466 million) to shareholders as a special dividend afterselling two businesses.
Reporting a dip in half-year profits, the London-listedcompany declared a special dividend of 150 pence a share, on topof an interim dividend which was increased by 5 percent to 19.5pence a share.
The company, which also refines and recycles platinum groupmetals, posted a 4 percent fall in underlying pretax profits to208.3 million pounds for the half year to the end of September,as a poor performance in its precious metal products businessdue to low prices offset strong growth in the emission controltechnologies business.
The company had said in July it might return cash toshareholders after selling its Gold and Silver Refining andResearch Chemicals businesses, provided that it did not make anymajor acquisitions.
Johnson Matthey, which makes most of its profits from thesale of platinum-rich catalysts, has benefited in recent yearsfrom tighter European regulation on emissions, boosting demandfor more value-added catalysts.
Its market dominance however is being challenged bycompetitors such as Belgium's Umicore R and its preciousmetals products division is suffering from a plunge in prices. ($1 = 0.6547 pounds) (Reporting by Olivia Kumwenda-Mtambo; Editing by Greg Mahlich)
