The board of directors of Uttara Bank Limited has revised the recent dividend declaration for the year ended on December 31, 2019 due to the central bank’s dividend policy circular, said an official disclosure on Monday.
Now the board of the bank has recommended 7.0 per cent cash and 23 per cent stock dividend for the year under review, said the disclosure.
Earlier, the board of directors of the bank has declared 10 per cent cash and 25 per cent stock dividend for the year ended on December, 31, 2020.
The central bank on May 11 suspended the payment of cash dividends by the banks until September 30 this year. Even the banks, which have already declared their dividends for 2019, will have to revise it if it clashes with the new step.
The banks, according to the Bangladesh bank (BB) directive, are allowed to declare 30 per cent dividends, including a maximum of 15 per cent cash dividend, for 2019 as per their ability maintaining some other obligations.
The central bank took the decision to boost the banks capacity to absorb the strain on their capital base from the ongoing economic dire straits due to COVID-19 pandemic.
Due to pandemic period and closing of trading and settlement activities, record date will be on June 3 instead of earlier scheduled on April 27.
The bank will hold extraordinary general meeting and annual general meeting on June 25 at 11:00 am and 11:30 am respectively through digital platform.
Other information will remain unchanged.
The bank has also reported consolidated EPS of Tk 4.59, consolidated NAV per share of Tk. 38.36 and Consolidated NOCFPS of Tk. (20.50) for the year ended on December 31, 2019 as against Tk 4.09 (restated), Tk 36.82 and Tk. 6.46 respectively for the same period of the previous year.
The board has also decided to increase authorised capital from Tk 6.0 to Tk 10 billion by amending relevant Clauses of the Memorandum and Articles of Association of the Company, subject to the approval of the shareholders in the EGM and obtaining permission from the Regulatory Authorities.
Each share of the bank, which was listed on the Dhaka Stock Exchange in 1984, closed at Tk 25.90 on Sunday.
In the last one year, its share traded between Tk 22.50 and Tk 29.70 each.
The bank disbursed 20 per cent cash and 2.0 per cent stock dividend for the year ended on December 31, 2018.
The bank’s paid-up capital is Tk 4.08 billion and authorised capital is Tk 6.0 billion, while the total number of securities is 408.08 million.
The sponsor-directors own 30.54 per cent stake in the bank, while the institutional investors own 19.62 per cent, foreign investors 2.81 per cent and the general public 47.03 per cent as on February 29, 2019, the DSE data shows.
