Most banks have high dividends for shareholders during the shareholders’ meeting this year. In addition, banks are also massively dividing bonus shares to increase capital, making shareholders feel warm, especially when the “king” stocks’ price are increasing quite strongly.
Nguyen Minh Hai, a shareholder of a bank with chartered capital of over 8 trillion dong, expressed his pleasure at the increase in share price. After a long time pouring capital into banking stocks and waiting, he says that now he can see the “light at the end of the tunnel.”
During the shareholders’ meeting this year, many banks have divided their “big” dividends and mainly by shares to increase their chartered capital, improve their financial capacity and meet Basel II standards.
In the previous years, ACB’s dividend pay-out ratio of 10 percent was considered high compared to other banks. According to a document newly published by Board of directors, the bank expects to pay dividend in 2017 at the rate of 15 percent. ACB will conduct its annual shareholders’ meeting on April 19 to approve this year’s business targets. With the profit target set for 2018, doubling in 2017 with an estimated pre-tax profit of VND5,699 billion, ACB is expected to increase its dividend pay-out ratio by 2018 to 30 percent.
MB has approved a dividend pay-out ratio of 15 percent, higher than the initial estimate of 12 percent. Dividend in 2018 is expected to be even higher than this figure. Specifically, besides the dividend of 11 percent (6 percent in cash and 5 percent in share), the Bank plans to issue bonus shares at the rate of 14 percent. The total bonus up to 25 percent is MB’s highest ever.
However, up to now, VPBank remains the highest paying bank in the industry with 30.22 percent of chartered capital. At the same time, the bank also plans to distribute bonus shares to shareholders. On the current number of ordinary shares, VPBank’s dividend pay-out ratio is up to 67 percent. The total value of this issuance is over 3,400 billion VND. At the recent shareholders’ meeting, the VPBank’s Board of directors said that after the plan was approved by the State Bank of Vietnam, the bank will distribute the highest profit to shareholders.
High dividends belong not only to the top-tier banks (after four state-owned banks) but also to the lower-tier banks. VIB has just approved the dividend payment plan for shareholders with 5 percent in cash and 31 percent in share. LienVietPostBank pays a dividend of 15 percent compared to 10 percent last year.
At the general Assembly of Shareholders 2018 taking place on March 31, OCB has approved the plan to pay dividends by shares ratio of 14.2 percent. OCB is also preparing for listing on HOSE at the end of Q3 or early Q4/ 2018.
At TP Bank, according to Chair Do Minh Phu, besides the plan of IPO on 19 April and offering of 15 percent of shares to investors, TPBank may pay coupon dividends this year at the rate of 28 percent. This would offset for some shareholders who did not get paid for dividends last year due to the retaining for negative equity surpluses offset.
On April 21, HDBank will conduct the Annual general Meeting of Shareholders and the Board of directors is expected to submit shareholders plans to pay dividends at 25 to 30 percent. This is also the highest dividend that this bank has ever paid.
In order to keep shareholders feel good, SCB’s Board of directors also spent VND600 billion from the profit surplus to distribute bonus shares.
Meanwhile, some banks did not hurry to pay dividends to wait for listed shares on the floor to attract investors such as Techcombank, despite the bank’s profit of over 8,000 billion. In other cases such as Eximbank and Sacombank, the possibility in this year’s shareholders’ meeting is still submitted to the shareholders for not paying dividends. The reason is that the bank is stepping up restructuring and concentrating all resources to deal with bad debt.
The failure to pay dividends of some banks may cause shareholders to be sad. However, unlike previous seasons, bankers have been less aggressive this year. The share price has risen sharply over the past one year and is still undergoing a positive outlook.
This is also the reason why shareholders prefer to receive dividends by stock, instead of cash as in previous years. Besides, this also helps banks to meet the need to increase charter capital under the pressure to raise CAR, according to Basel II standards.
