2009-08-07 21:42:16 - SADIF-Investment Analytics has applied its StockMarks™ stock-rating system to Alumina Limited and produced a research report, rating the company's attractiveness to long-term investors.

Mira, Portugal – August 7th, 2009 – SADIF Investment Analytics today announced the release of a new equity research report covering Alumina Limited (AWC). The report utilizes SADIF's powerful StockMarks™ stock rating system and is required reading for any current or potential Alumina Limited investor.

Report Summary: Australian aluminum company Alumina Limited reported a AUD 15M loss for the first half

of 2009 as lower demand led to production cuts and a weaker Australian dollar reduced underlying profits. The loss is a significant decline from the AUD 152M profit that the company made in the first half of 2008. The price of LME aluminum has more than halved over the past year as a weakened industrial sector and fears of a prolonged recovery took their toll on demand. Since the start of the year, Alumina Limited has paid down its US debt, reducing the company's gearing from 29% to 8.6%. Alumina Limited owns 40% of Alcoa World Alumina & Chemicals (AWAC) as a joint venture with Alcoa. While production was lower at some of AWAC's higher cost refineries, the company rebalanced production and operated the lower-cost refineries at record outputs. AWAC expects to further reduce its cost of production in the second half of the year as production at the company's newer Brazilian operations steps up. While the company has suffered from weaker aluminum prices over the past year, when assessing Alumina Limited as a long-term investment, we should focus on the company's long-term underlying fundamentals. We can assess Alumina Limited's fundamentals through the use of the StockMarks framework. Alumina currently has an overall long-term investment-attractiveness rating (Total StockMark or SMT) of 65, placing the company above the Australian market average. This rating ranks Alumina Limited third among ten of the company's closest Australian-listed peers, selected on the basis of similarity of business, market positioning factors such as size and share comparisons.

The complete report breaks down the Total StockMark into its three components – business, management and price, performing a thorough analysis of Alumina Limited for long-term investors.

A summary of the StockMarks™ ratings for Alumina Limited is available here:
sadifanalytics.com/stockmarks/company.php?ticker=AWC&cod_country ..

The report has been distributed to Reuters, and forwarded to Yahoo Finance and FT.com. It is available under 'Analyst Reports' from these websites, from multiple professional platforms including Reuters Knowledge, TheMarkets.com and Thomson Research or directly from SADIF-Investment Analytics at:
sadifanalytics.com/stockmarks/article/hist_article.php?cod_count ..


About SADIF-Investment Analytics:
SADIF-Investment Analytics is an independent investment research company covering sixteen different markets and over 12,000 companies. The StockMarks™ system is based on proven investment principles and is designed to drive long-term shareholder returns.