Dividend payment highly anticipated by shareholders

In an Our Today follow-up, NCB Financial Group has finally declared a dividend, the first time in over a year.

The board of directors, at its meeting yesterday, approved a dividend of $0.50 per ordinary stock unit. The dividend is payable on May 31, 2021 for stockholders on record as at May 14, 2021.

The ex-dividend date is May 13, 2021.

Our Today reported last week that the board would consider a dividend payment for 2020, having said the contrary in two press releases issued earlier this month.

NO DIVIDEND DECLARED FOR 2020 FINANCIAL YEAR

The last dividend payment received by shareholders was back in March last year when the Board of Directors declared an interim dividend of $1.00 per ordinary stock unit. The dividend payment was made on March 2, 2020 to stockholders on record as at February 14, 2020.

Since then, at each quarterly board meeting, the directors decided not to declare an interim dividend for each of the quarters, due to the prevailing circumstances arising from the COVID-19 pandemic. No dividend was declared for the entire 2020 financial year with the directors declaring at the beginning of this month that the non-payment of dividends would be extended into the second quarter ended March 2021.

This position has however been reversed, which is to the liking of shareholders. NCB recorded a 36 per cent decline in net profits attributable to shareholders for its 2020 financial year ended September 30, 2020.