Nairobi,KENYA:Shareholders from the Kenya Commercial Bank are set to get higher returns on their investment after the bank announced a rise in the the dividend pay out ratio for the financial year ended 2016.
While speaking to journalists on Thursday, the chief financial officer at KCB Lawrence Kimathi said the issuance of 40.8 million shares in 2016 had helped them raise their debt financing hence improving their financial position.
“We have generated fairly good results and we also raised Sh.7.5 billion in debt financing to boost our capital. This has given us the headroom to share out the dividends,” Kimathi said.
Shareholders are set to receive sh. 3 as dividend for each share owned which is a 50% increase from last year where they received sh. 2 per share.
Despite its subsidiary branches in the East African region not doing well as compared to its Kenyan branches and analysts predicting the fall in stock value of banks due to the signing by president Uhuru Kenyatta of the law caping interest rates, the bank says the increase in dividend payouts was as a result of its improved financial position.
The set payouts are the only ones so far by a financial institution for the financial year ended 2016 to have improved as those by Stanbic holdings dropped, while those by Barclays bank and NIC bank remained constant.
