Tanzania’s leading cellular network company Vodacom Tanzania confirmed that his shareholders will pocket up to $12731227.20 following the telecommunication’s first dividend payout that was announced by the firm on Wednsday.
The company said that on 21 September 2017, its board of directors recommended a gross final dividend of Sh12.74 per ordinary share, payable from income reserves, in respect of the financial year ended 31 March 2017.
“Subject to conditions stated in the company’s dividend policy, Vodacom Tanzania Plc proposed to pay its shareholders at least 50 per cent of net profit. However, investors will now get 60 per cent of net profit,” the company said noting that the goal was to build investor confidence in the Dar es Salaam Stock Exchange (DSE) listed telecommunication company.
During the year ending March 31st 2017, Vodacom Tanzania Plc – which trades as Voda, managed to beat its profit projections by 0.57 per cent.
It registered a net profit of Sh47.554 billion during the year under review, against a projection of Sh47.28 billion as presented in its Prospectus.
Going by the net profit, the company will have to issue dividends to the tune of Sh28.53 billion.
Subject to the approval of the company’s shareholders at the annual general meeting slated for Friday 27 October 2017, the company said, the dividend may be paid on Thursday 30 November 2017.
The last day to trade shares cum dividend is Tuesday 10 October 2017. Shares will commence trading ex-dividend from Wednesday 11 October 2017.
The number of ordinary shares in issue at the date of the Board’s recommendation was 2 240 000 300, which, multiplied by the amount in dividend per share comes to Sh28.537 billion.
The dividend will be subject to a local withholding tax rate to those shareholders not exempt from paying dividend withholding tax.
On Thursday 30 November 2017, the final dividend will be either electronically transferred to the bank or mobile money accounts of all certificated shareholders, where this facility is available.
In a move that made it the first telecommunications company in Tanzania to comply with the government’s mandatory listing requirements, Vodacom also completed the largest IPO in the history of Tanzania’s capital markets, attracting more than 40,000 local investors.
Two months ago, the company published their first quarter results for the current financial year, which showed that commercial momentum continued as investments focused on key strategic drivers – data, M-Pesa and enterprise – yield positive results.
