Oceanic Bank pays N21.2bn dividend to shareholders

Friday Ekeoba, Lagos - 11.02.2008

SHAREHOLDERS of Oceanic Bank Inter- national Plc are in for a very good deal as the bank’s management has concluded arrangements to pay an interim dividend this year to all its shareholders. With over 400,000 shareholders, the bank said it would effectively enrich the pockets of its shareholders through bumper dividend payout, bonus issue and capital appreciation. Source within the bank said “the bank will pay interim dividend to all the shareholders this financial year.

The Managing Director said the bank would make shareholders millionaires and this would be done through bumper returns on investments.” A review of the bank’s history of dividend payment indicated that the bank has paid N21.17 billion dividends in the last five years. While N900 million was paid as dividend in 2003, N1.5 billion was paid in 2004, N2.99 billion in 2005, N3.91 billion in 2006 and N11.88 billion in 2007.

Among the top six banks in the industry in 2007, Oceanic Bank has the highest return on average equity, the second highest return on average assets and the second lowest cost-to-income ratio. The bank, it will be recalled, gave investors a bonus issue of one for four in the 2006 financial year as well as a dividend of N0.42 per share. It also paid N1.02 last year as against the projected 75 kobo dividend.

Oceanic Bank’s dividend policy has been one of the most attractive in the industry in the past five years. The quantum of its annual dividend payout has grown by an impressive 1,477 per cent since 2001, which implies that investors in Oceanic Bank have the prospect of seeing their investment yielding four times the value of their initial investment annually.