Rio de Janeiro, January 31, 2011 – Vale S.A. (Vale) announces that its Executive Board has approved and will submit to the Board of Directors a proposal for the distribution of a minimum dividend of US$ 4 billion in 2011, equivalent to US$ 0.766536226 per share for both common and preferred shares outstanding, to be distributed in two installments, on April 29 and October 31, 2011.
The Board of Directors will evaluate the proposal submitted by senior management, regarding each installment, in the meetings scheduled for April 13 and October 14, 2011.
If the proposal is approved by our Board of Directors, the payment of each installment will be made in Brazilian reais, calculated on the basis of the Brazilian real/US dollar exchange rate (Ptax – option 5) published by the Central Bank of Brazil on the business day prior to the Board of Directors meeting that approves the dividend proposal.
The minimum dividend of US$ 4 billion represents an increase of 60% compared to the minimum dividend announced in 2010. Considering the extraordinary dividend of US$ 1 billion being distributed today, the total minimum dividend in 2011 will be 66.7% higher than the amount distributed last year, US$ 3.0 billion.
The proposed minimum dividend is consistent with Vale’s financial policy, which aims to provide a strong support to the exploitation of profitable growth opportunities alongside the preservation of a sound balance sheet.