* To pay 305 million stg or 150p/shr as special dividend
* Also to pay regular interim dividend of 19.5p
* H1 underlying pretax profit 208.3 million stg
* Shares up 7 pct (Adds restructuring details, shares)
JOHANNESBURG/LONDON, Nov 19 (Reuters) - Johnson Matthey, the world's biggest maker of metal catalysts for caremission-control devices, will pay 305 million pounds ($466million) to shareholders as a special dividend after selling twobusinesses.
Reporting a dip in half-year profits, the company said onThursday it would make a special payout of 150 pence a share, ontop of an regular interim dividend increased 5 percent to 19.5p.
The company had said in July it might return cash toshareholders after making 380 million pounds from the sale ofits Gold and Silver Refining and Research Chemicals businesses,provided it did not make any major acquisitions.
The shares were up 7 percent by 0855 GMT, the biggestgainers in the FTSE 100 index which was up 1 percent.
The company, which also refines and recycles platinum groupmetals, posted a 4 percent fall in underlying pretax profit to208.3 million pounds for the half year through September, as apoor performance in its precious metal products business due tolow prices offset strong growth in emission controltechnologies.
Johnson Matthey said as a result of challenging conditionsin several key markets, it had started a restructuring reviewparticularly in its Process Technology division, which sellscatalysts and technologies to the oil and petrochemical sector.
It said the restructuring was expected to cut costs byaround 30 million pounds annually and had an associated one-offcharge of around 40 million pounds. The process would alsoinvolve job cuts, Finance Director Den Jones said.
"We are just starting employee consultations so it'sdifficult to say how many people, but we are looking at a coupleof a hundred people and it's mainly in the Process Technologybut also in the Precious Metal Products divisions," Jones said.
Johnson Matthey has benefited in recent years from tighterEuropean regulation on emissions, boosting demand for morevalue-added catalysts. But its market dominance is beingchallenged by competitors such as Belgium's Umicore andits precious metals products division is suffering from a plungein prices.
To counter worries over the falling market share ofplatinum-rich diesel vehicles in Europe, the company is bettingon its newly acquired battery business.
Automobile emissions-control system makers are also expectedto gain from the Volkswagen emissions-cheatingscandal, seen likely to lead to tighter regulation to make carsmore environmentally friendly.
($1 = 0.6547 pounds) (Reporting by Olivia Kumwenda-Mtambo in Johannesburg and JanHarvey in London; Editing by Greg Mahlich and David Holmes)
Johnson Matthey (JMAT)
