Rio Tinto plc (RIO) Stock: Share Price Near Highs as New CEO Reset Targets Up to 50% Earnings Growth by 2030

Published: 8 December 2025 – Informational only, not investment advice.

Rio Tinto stock today: near record highs with a big strategy reset

Rio Tinto’s shares are trading very close to record territory just days after new CEO Simon Trott used the 2025 Capital Markets Day to redraw the group’s roadmap to 2030.

On the New York Stock Exchange, Rio Tinto’s ADRs (ticker: RIO) closed at $73.06 on 5 December, within touching distance of their all‑time closing high of $74.28 on 3 December and a 52‑week high of $74.53. ^[1] Over the past year the stock is up around 18–22%, ahead of the FTSE 100’s roughly 16% gain, and has delivered about 24% year‑to‑date total return, depending on the index you compare it to. ^[2]

In London, Rio Tinto plc trades around 5,500–5,500 GBX (about £55) with a market cap near £69 billion and a dividend yield in the 4.7–5.0% range. ^[3] Australian‑listed Rio (ASX:RIO) shares were weaker intraday on 8 December as traders locked in profits after a strong run and digested the new strategy. ^[4]

Valuation‑wise, the ADR currently trades on a trailing P/E around 11–12 (roughly $73 / $6.3 of trailing EPS), slightly above its 12‑month average but still modest for a global mining major. ^[5]

So the market has already repriced Rio up – the question is whether Simon Trott’s reset justifies more upside.

Capital Markets Day 2025: “Stronger, sharper, simpler” Rio Tinto

On 4 December 2025, Rio Tinto laid out its new strategy at Capital Markets Day under freshly installed CEO Simon Trott. The core message: less sprawl, more focus, and higher returns. ^[6]

Key planks of the plan:

Three core business pillars
Rio is reorganising itself around Iron Ore, Copper, and Aluminium & Lithium, pushing accountability down to site level and stripping away layers of central bureaucracy. ^[7]
Big productivity gains already banked
The company says early restructuring has already delivered about US$650 million in annualised productivity benefits in just three months, via tighter cost control, killing non‑core studies and standardising best practice across mines and smelters. ^[8]
US$5–10 billion of asset sales and partnerships
Management plans to free up US$5–10 billion from the asset base through divestments and joint ventures, with the titanium and borates businesses now under active strategic review. ^[9]
The idea is to recycle capital into the strongest long‑term assets while bringing in third‑party funding where others can own infrastructure more cheaply.
Production growth – but disciplined
Rio now expects total production to rise about 7% in 2025, and is guiding to around 3% compound annual growth through 2030, driven largely by:
- the underground ramp‑up at Oyu Tolgoi (copper, Mongolia),
- early tonnes from Simandou (high‑grade iron ore, Guinea), and
- lithium projects including Rincon in Argentina. ^[10]
Earnings ambitions: up to 40–50% by 2030
Using “long‑run consensus” commodity prices, Rio believes that EBITDA or earnings could be 40–50% higher by 2030, supported by roughly 20% copper‑equivalent production growth, lower unit costs and the streamlined portfolio. ^[11]
Capex peak, then fall
Capex is expected to be around US$11 billion in 2025 and up to US$11 billion in 2026, before stepping down to ≤US$10 billion per year from around 2028 as the current wave of mega‑projects completes. ^[12]
Lower decarbonisation bill, same climate goal
To hit a 50% emissions reduction by 2030, Rio now estimates needing US$1–2 billion of dedicated decarbonisation capex – a huge drop from the earlier US$5–6 billion estimate – by leaning heavily on third‑party renewable power projects rather than owning everything itself. ^[13]
Cost curve: down, not up
Across the portfolio, the group aims to cut unit costs by roughly 4% between 2024 and 2030, reversing the inflationary drift that has dogged miners in recent years. ^[14]

Crucially for income investors, Rio reiterated its long‑standing 40–60% payout of underlying earnings through ordinary dividends and occasional specials or buybacks – a framework it has followed for nine years. ^[15]

Fresh news on 8 December 2025: rail cars, trucks and power deals

A lot of the immediate news flow around Rio Tinto now is about how it executes that strategy on the ground. Today’s headlines and recent updates include:

First Pilbara‑made rail car rolls out
On 8 December, Rio announced its first iron ore rail car built in the Pilbara, rolling off the line in Karratha as part of a A$150 million partnership with Gemco Rail to build 100 cars in Western Australia and support local manufacturing. ^[16]
It’s a small line item financially, but symbolic: more local content, supply‑chain resilience and faster turnaround on heavy equipment.
Electric haul truck trials with BHP and Caterpillar
On 5 December, Reuters reported that BHP and Rio Tinto have started trialling battery‑electric haul trucks at the Jimblebar iron ore mine in Western Australia’s Pilbara, in partnership with Caterpillar. The program will test whether zero‑emission trucks can replace diesel in large‑scale iron ore operations and what infrastructure and power systems that would require. ^[17]
Energy efficiency agreement in Australia
Energy Magazine reported today that technology firm Agilitus has secured a three‑year agreement with Rio Tinto, in a deal focused on electricity and energy‑efficiency solutions for the miner’s Australian operations. Details are limited, but the partnership points in the same direction: lower power bills and lower emissions. ^[18]
Copper and lithium momentum
Bloomberg notes that Rio and Chilean state miner Codelco are pressing ahead with their lithium joint venture in Chile, calming market worries that Rio’s more cautious stance on new lithium projects might stall that initiative. ^[19]

Together with the strategy reset, this newsflow paints a picture of a miner trying to be both leaner and cleaner while still leaning hard into iron ore, copper and aluminium.

Financial performance: 2025 profit dip, but portfolio broadening

The big macro backdrop here: iron ore got weaker, costs went up, and Rio’s earnings dipped – but not disastrously.

First-half 2025: earnings and dividend down

In July, Rio reported its smallest first‑half underlying profit since 2020. Underlying earnings for H1 2025 came in at US$4.81 billion, down 16% year‑on‑year and slightly below the Visible Alpha consensus, with net profit to owners at US$4.5 billion vs US$5.8 billion in H1 2024. ^[20]

The culprit was mostly iron ore:

realised iron ore prices fell about 15% versus the prior year,
unit costs in the flagship Pilbara operations rose to about US$24.3/t (from US$23.2/t), partly thanks to lower shipments and cyclone impacts. ^[21]

Rio responded by trimming its interim dividend to US$1.48 per share (148 US cents), the lowest in seven years, versus US$1.77 the year before. ^[22]

Management argued the results were still “very resilient” given the squeeze on iron ore – and pointed to stronger pricing for copper, bauxite, alumina, aluminium and gold as partial offsets. ^[23]

Q2 and Q3: production strength and project ramp-ups

On the operational side, Rio’s Q2 2025 production report showed roughly 13% growth in copper‑equivalent output, and about 6% growth for the first half, driven by:

continued ramp‑up at Oyu Tolgoi,
solid performance across the Pilbara iron ore network, and
improved bauxite and aluminium volumes. ^[24]

Third‑party commentary on Q3 suggests operations remained robust across most major assets, supporting strong margins despite choppy commodity prices. ^[25]

One outlier: alumina. In November Rio decided to almost halve production at its Yarwun alumina refinery in Queensland because a residue stockpile had reached capacity and the company wanted to cut costs. ^[26] That’s a reminder that even within aluminium, not every asset is a star.

Balance sheet, dividends and yield: still a cash machine

Despite the profit wobble, Rio remains financially chunky:

Net debt is low, and metrics such as a current ratio around 1.5 and debt‑to‑equity near 0.37 underline balance‑sheet strength. ^[27]
DBRS Morningstar maintains an “A” credit rating with a stable trend for the group. ^[28]

On income:

The trailing dividend yield on the ADR is roughly 5.1%, with a similar ~5% yield implied by various global listings. ^[29]
For 2025 so far, the interim dividend of 148 US cents per share (about 108.6p on the London line) went ex‑dividend in mid‑August and was paid in late September. ^[30]
Historically, Rio tends to pay two dividends per year, and its policy of distributing 40–60% of underlying earnings has been consistent since 2016. ^[31]

Some brokers expect the total annual dividend to grow again from FY26 as copper and Simandou kick in. UBS, for example, has highlighted the potential for Rio’s dividend per share to rise meaningfully from around US$4 per share as earnings recover, although detailed numbers are behind a paywall. ^[32]

Bottom line: at today’s price, investors are being paid roughly a 5% cash yield to wait for the growth and cost‑cutting story to play out.

Analyst views: modest base‑case upside, punchier bull scenarios

Price targets: “fairly valued” with some upside

Analysts are not screaming that Rio is mispriced – but they’re not calling it expensive either.

For the London‑listed Rio Tinto plc, five analysts tracked by MarketBeat have an average 12‑month target price of about 5,570 GBX, with a range of 4,900–6,950 GBX. That implies only around 1–2% upside from the late‑November share price near 5,499 GBX. ^[33]
For the NYSE‑listed ADR, 12 analysts give Rio a “Moderate Buy” rating, with a mix of 7 holds, 3 buys and 2 strong buys and an average 1‑year target around US$73 – almost exactly where the shares are today. ^[34]

Other platforms see slightly different targets:

TradingView cites a consensus target around 5,770 GBX for the London line, with the high estimate above 7,600 GBX and the low around 4,475 GBX. ^[35]
Forecasts for the Australian OTC ticker RTNTF on Fintel show a projected price near US$88.6 by December 2026, only a few percent above their base price, implying mild upside in that model. ^[36]

The short version: consensus says Rio is roughly fairly valued, with modest upside unless you assume a more bullish commodity backdrop.

Earnings forecasts: dip in 2025, growth returning in 2026–27

Across multiple data providers, the shape of forecast earnings is broadly similar:

Nasdaq and Zacks see 2025 EPS around US$6.3–6.4, then 2026 EPS around US$7.2, implying ~14% growth in 2026 after this year’s dip, followed by a slight step down but still healthy earnings in 2027. ^[37]
WallStreetZen aggregates forecasts that put 2025 EPS around US$6.46, 2026 at US$7.15, and 2027 at US$7.21, with a fairly wide range of outcomes (from about US$5.4 to US$9.4 in 2026–27). ^[38]
Simply Wall St summarises the consensus as earnings growth of about 4.8–4.9% per year and revenue growth of ~2.4% per year over the next few years, with forecast return on equity near 17% in three years’ time. ^[39]
A Finbox median EPS forecast series suggests Rio’s EPS is expected to average around 5.6 (on their methodology) over the next five fiscal years, again pointing to steady but not explosive growth. ^[40]

Meanwhile, a more bullish scenario analysis from DiscoveryAlert, drawing on Macquarie’s models, argues Rio Tinto shares could deliver up to 49% upside by 2026 under a stronger commodity price deck – in other words, if iron ore and copper stay higher for longer than base‑case consensus assumes. ^[41]

So the analytical mood music is: solid balance sheet, attractive yield, mid‑single‑digit structural growth, and a decent cyclic kicker if metals prices surprise on the upside.

Governance and buybacks: Chinalco in the spotlight

One knotty issue for Rio’s capital management has been its largest shareholder, Chinese state‑backed Aluminium Corporation of China (Chinalco):

Chinalco owns about 11% of Rio’s London‑listed arm, but is subject to a 14.99% ownership cap imposed by Australian regulators in 2008. ^[42]
That threshold complicates share buybacks because Rio can’t easily shrink its equity base without pushing Chinalco’s stake above the cap.

At the investor day, Simon Trott said Rio is “actively working with Chinalco” on solutions, including an asset‑for‑equity swap first reported in October, which could see Chinalco swap some holdings for direct project exposure, reducing its share stake and giving Rio more flexibility on buybacks and deals. ^[43]

If Rio can resolve this, it potentially re‑opens large‑scale buybacks as an extra lever on returns – something many investors in capital‑heavy miners care deeply about.

Strategic themes and the main risks for Rio Tinto stock

Strip away the acronyms and PowerPoint gloss, and Rio’s investment story on 8 December 2025 boils down to a few big forces:

1. Iron ore: still the cash engine, still China‑sensitive

Iron ore remains Rio’s biggest profit driver, and the H1 2025 numbers showed how vulnerable profits and dividends can be when iron ore prices fall double‑digits and unit costs creep up. ^[44]

Simandou’s high‑grade ore and ongoing Pilbara upgrades should cement Rio’s position at the bottom half of the global cost curve, but the whole sector is still hostage to:

Chinese steel production,
competing supply from Brazil and elsewhere, and
periodic macro panics about global growth.

2. Copper and lithium: the growth edge

Rio is deliberately trying to pivot harder into copper and lithium, the metals of electrification:

Oyu Tolgoi’s underground expansion is expected to lift Rio’s copper output by more than 50% in 2025 and 15% in 2026, and the group aims to reach 1 million tonnes of copper per year by 2030. ^[45]
Lithium projects like Rincon and the Chilean JV with Codelco are intended to give Rio real leverage to battery demand, although management has stressed it will only commit new capital “when supported by markets and returns”, not at any price. ^[46]

If EVs, grid batteries and data‑centre build‑outs keep copper and lithium tight, that portfolio shift looks prescient. If those markets disappoint, Rio may have over‑invested.

3. Cost discipline, energy and ESG

Rio’s recent moves – from cutting decarbonisation capex by relying on third‑party renewables, through electric truck trials to local rail‑car manufacturing and energy‑efficiency partnerships – all point toward lower operating costs and a cleaner ESG story. ^[47]

That’s helpful both for margins and for keeping regulators, communities and large institutional investors onside. The flip‑side is that mis‑steps in cultural heritage, community relations or high‑impact projects like potential deep‑sea mining could quickly dent the ESG premium and raise Rio’s cost of capital. ^[48]

4. Execution risk on mega‑projects and asset sales

Rio is juggling a lot:

Simandou in Guinea – politically, logistically and environmentally complex.
Oyu Tolgoi – technically demanding underground work.
Multiple lithium projects in volatile markets.
A US$5–10 billion asset sale programme that must raise cash without giving away the crown jewels. ^[49]

Any serious cost blow‑out, delay or fire‑sale pricing could derail those 40–50% earnings uplift ambitions and force management back to the whiteboard.

So where does that leave Rio Tinto stock on 8 December 2025?

Putting it all together:

Share price: close to record highs, with Rio having strongly outperformed many benchmarks in 2025. ^[50]
Valuation: a low‑teens P/E and ~5% yield – not “cheap like 2020 panic”, but not frothy for a miner with a strong balance sheet and high‑quality assets. ^[51]
Strategy: new CEO Simon Trott is pushing a sharper, more focused Rio that aims for 7% production growth in 2025, low‑single‑digit growth thereafter, and up to 50% higher earnings by 2030 at consensus commodity prices, while spending less on decarbonisation and slimming the portfolio. ^[52]
Consensus: analysts, by and large, think the shares are fairly valued or offer modest upside, with base‑case EPS growth in the mid‑single to low‑double digits over the next few years – and more bullish scenarios if metals stay strong. ^[53]

For investors, the proposition at today’s prices looks like:

a big, diversified miner with an “A” credit rating, strong cash generation and a ~5% dividend yield,
undergoing a serious internal reset that could raise returns on capital,
whose future returns will still be heavily shaped by the iron‑ore cycle and project execution.

References

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London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG) Stock: ChatGPT Deal, £1bn Buyback and 2026 Price Targets – December 8, 2025

Barclays PLC Stock Update: Buybacks, Evelyn Partners Bid Talk and 2026 Outlook (8 December 2025)

RELX PLC Stock Today: £1.5bn Buyback, AI Growth Engine and 2026–2027 Forecasts After the Sell-Off