Johnson Matthey to pay out $466 mln to shareholders after asset sales

Nov 19 (Reuters) - Johnson Matthey (LSE: JMAT.L - news) , the world's biggest maker of metal catalysts for car emission control devices, announced on Thursday it will pay 305 million pounds ($466 million) to shareholders as a special dividend after selling two businesses.

Reporting a dip in half-year profits, the London-listed company declared a special dividend of 150 pence a share, on top of an interim dividend which was increased by 5 percent to 19.5 pence a share.

The company, which also refines and recycles platinum group metals, posted a 4 percent fall in underlying pretax profits to 208.3 million pounds for the half year to the end of September, as a poor performance in its precious metal products business due to low prices offset strong growth in the emission control technologies business.

The company had said in July it might return cash to shareholders after selling its Gold (Other OTC: GDCWF - news) and Silver Refining and Research Chemicals businesses, provided that it did not make any major acquisitions.

Johnson Matthey, which makes most of its profits from the sale of platinum-rich catalysts, has benefited in recent years from tighter European regulation on emissions, boosting demand for more value-added catalysts.

Its market dominance however is being challenged by competitors such as Belgium's Umicore R and its precious metals products division is suffering from a plunge in prices. ($1 = 0.6547 pounds) (Reporting by Olivia Kumwenda-Mtambo; Editing by Greg Mahlich)