DENVER (AP) _ Royal Gold Inc. (RGLD) on Wednesday reported fiscal fourth-quarter earnings of $81.7 million.

On a per-share basis, the Denver-based company said it had profit of $1.24. Earnings, adjusted for pretax gains and non-recurring gains, came to $1.04 per share.

The results beat Wall Street expectations. The average estimate of four analysts surveyed by Zacks Investment Research was for earnings of 93 cents per share.

The manager of precious metal royalties posted revenue of $168 million in the period.

For the year, the company reported profit of $302.5 million, or $4.60 per share. Revenue was reported as $615.9 million.

Royal Gold shares have increased 8% since the beginning of the year. In the final minutes of trading on Wednesday, shares hit $114.94, a decline of 12% in the last 12 months.

This story was generated by Automated Insights (http://automatedinsights.com/ap) using data from Zacks Investment Research. Access a Zacks stock report on RGLD at https://www.zacks.com/ap/RGLD

Copyright by Automated Insights, Inc. All rights reserved., source Associated Press News