ILKAY vs RIO: How Iluka Resources Limited and Rio Tinto Compare (2026)

Same yardstick, side by side (as of August 2026). Valuation lined up like this is most meaningful for two names in the same corner of the market, which these are. Figures are approximate; verify before investing.

The metrics above tell you which is the marginally better business. The bigger risk for most people is not picking the slightly worse stock, it is over-concentrating. ILKAY and RIO share themes, so owning both, or adding either to what you already hold, can quietly push a large share of your portfolio into one bet.

This is the part a generic comparison page cannot answer, because it depends on what you own. Connect your brokerage and Walnut shows your real, combined ILKAY and RIO exposure, flags overlap with your existing positions, and tells you if adding one would tip you past a concentration you are comfortable with, read-only by default, with your login staying at your broker. Walnut is not an investment adviser.

Iluka Resources Limited is one of the world's largest producers of zircon and a major supplier of high grade titanium dioxide feedstocks, principally rutile and synthetic rutile. Zircon goes mostly into ceramic tiles, glazes, refractories and zirconium chemicals, while rutile and synthetic rutile feed titanium dioxide pigment plants that make white pigment for paint, plastics and paper. That end market is deeply cyclical and it turned against Iluka through 2025: demand was subdued, the pigment industry restructured, and mineral sands revenue fell ~13.5% to ~A$976M. Management responded by idling capacity rather than selling into weakness, suspending mining at the Cataby operation for around twelve months and taking the SR2 synthetic rutile kiln offline, which cut 2026 cash costs of production guidance to roughly A$420M from about A$590M in 2025. Group revenue for the year ended 31 December 2025 was roughly A$1.02B. A statutory net loss of about A$288M followed roughly A$565M of exceptional items including impairments and an inventory write down, and the full year dividend was cut to 5 Australian cents per ordinary share, fully franked, from 8 cents the year before.

Full ILKAY guide

Rio Tinto is a global mining group that digs, processes, and ships the raw materials behind steel, power grids, and batteries. Iron ore from its Pilbara operations in Western Australia is still the profit engine, generating the majority of earnings, while the company also produces aluminum and bauxite, copper (including from the Oyu Tolgoi mine in Mongolia), and, after its 2025 acquisition of Arcadium, lithium. Its two marquee growth projects are the giant Simandou iron ore mine in Guinea, which made its first shipment in late 2025, and a lithium business it aims to scale toward 200,000 tonnes of lithium carbonate equivalent by 2028. RIO shares are American Depositary Receipts representing the London-listed Rio Tinto plc, so U.S. investors get the same underlying economics with dollar-denominated trading.

Full RIO guide

Both fit overlapping themes, but they are not interchangeable. The useful comparison is which set of drivers and risks you want exposure to.

• ILKAY drivers: Eneabba refinery commissioning and the shift from capex to revenue; Zircon pricing and the pigment cycle.
• RIO drivers: Iron ore scale plus Simandou; Copper growth for electrification.

A faster-growing, richer-valued name usually swings harder, so it suits a longer horizon and a higher tolerance for volatility; a steadier, more cash-generative business suits a more conservative or income-minded investor. The honest test is which set of risks you could hold through a drawdown: Iluka's mineral sands earnings are cyclical and price-taking, and the 2025 result showed how quickly a soft pigment market flows through to revenue, impairments and the dividend. For RIO, rio's fortunes are tightly linked to iron ore prices, which hinge on Chinese steel demand and property construction, so a slowdown there hits earnings and the dividend directly.

Growth-minded investors who believe the theme has years to run tend to accept the richer multiple for more upside; value-minded investors lean toward the cheaper forward earnings and steadier profile. Pick ILKAY if you believe its drivers more; RIO if you believe its. Many investors hold both, but since they share themes, that is a concentrated bet, not diversification. Decide deliberately and check overlap. For the full detail, see the ILKAY and RIO guides.

ILKAY. Every figure above except the ADR market capitalisation and the ADR yield is an Australian dollar number, because Iluka reports in Australian dollars and the ASX line ILU is the primary listing. Converting at roughly US$0.69 per A$1 puts FY2025 group revenue near US$0.70B, but that rate moves and the ADR price absorbs the change whether or not the underlying share does anything. The FY2025 statutory loss reflects one-off charges rather than the run rate of the mineral sands business, which still produced positive underlying EBITDA, and the Eneabba refinery is pre-revenue so no earnings multiple currently captures it.

RIO. Revenue and EBITDA both grew in 2025, but reported profit slipped and net debt roughly tripled after the Arcadium lithium acquisition. Shares traded around the low-to-mid $90s at mid-2026 on a trailing P/E of roughly 15, a discount that reflects commodity-cycle risk. The full-year dividend of about $6.5 billion at a roughly 60% payout keeps the yield near 4%.

Headline figures (approximate, August 2026): ILKAY shows revenue (fy2025, year to 31 dec) ~A$1.02B group, of which ~A$976M was mineral sands (about US$0.70B converted at roughly US$0.69 per A$1), underlying mineral sands ebitda (fy2025) ~A$300M, a margin near 31%, statutory result (fy2025) Net loss of ~A$288M after ~A$565M of exceptional items including impairments and an inventory write-down, market capitalisation ~US$2.0B to US$2.1B for the ADR, equivalent to roughly A$2.9B on about 431M ASX ordinary shares near A$6.78; RIO shows revenue (2025) ~$57.6B, underlying ebitda (2025) ~$25.4B, underlying earnings (2025) ~$10.9B, net debt ~$14.4B.

ILKAY and RIO are related but distinct: same themes, different businesses and risks. Neither wins in the abstract; the right pick is whichever thesis you actually believe, sized so you are not over-concentrated in one theme. Walnut can show your combined ILKAY and RIO exposure against your real portfolio. It is not an investment adviser.