BSP declares final dividend at 3.135t per share

BANK South Pacific (BSP) has declared its 2010 final dividend and share consolidation at its annual meeting for shareholders last week.
The board of directors declared a final dividend in respect of last year’s profit at 3.13 toea per share.
BSP board of directors chairman Kostas Constantinou said this would brings the total of dividend for last year  to 4.50 toea per share, after the interim dividend of 1.37 toea per share paid last November.
Constantinou said the total dividend was an increase of 12.5%  over the dividend per share paid last year on the 2009 profit and was consistent with solid annual improvement in the operating results of the company as reported earlier in the year.
He added that the total dividend also represented a payout ratio of 76%, an increase over the 70% ration in the prior year.
At the meeting, shareholders also approved a re-organisation of the company’s capital through a share consolidation where 10 existing BSP ordinary shares would be consolidated into one BSP share.
Once all compliance procedures are completed with the Port Moresby Stock Exchange, it is expected that the share consolidation would be effected early next month.