Chailease Holding Co Ltd (中租控股), the nation’s top leasing services provider, has proposed a cash dividend of NT$4.2 per share and a stock dividend of NT$0.3 per share, after earnings per share rose to NT$10.37 last year from NT$8.12 in 2017.
The dividend payout for last year was higher than the NT$4 per share it distributed in 2017, which had a cash dividend of NT$3.8 and a stock dividend of NT$0.2 per share.
The dividend proposal, the highest in eight years, suggests a yield of 3.41 percent based on Friday’s share price of NT$123 in Taipei.
Chailease is to hold a shareholders’ meeting on May 24 to vote on the dividend proposal.
At the meeting, shareholders would also vote on the company’s plan to issue 38.69 million new common shares.
Proceeds from the share sale would be used to prepare for business needs, the company said in a regulatory filing on Friday.
Chailease reported net income of NT$13.37 billion (US$434 million) for last year, up 38.48 percent from NT$9.66 billion in 2017. Its revenue expanded 21.75 percent to NT$50.47 billion, with annual return-on-equity of 23 percent — all record highs.
Total assets were NT$400.38 billion last year, the company said.
The company maintains a positive business outlook for this year thanks to double-digit percentage loan growth in its major markets, along with a stabilized interest spread and less pressure on funding costs in China, Chailease said at an earnings conference on Tuesday last week.
The company expects loan growth of 10 percent in Taiwan this year, it said, adding that the projection entails mid to long-term growth, as equipment leasing has already reached a high penetration rate in this market.
Chailease aims to achieve loan growth of 20 percent in China this year, after achieving growth of more than 30 percent last year, it added.
In ASEAN economies, it plans to achieve loan growth of 20 percent, the company said.
While attaining double-digit percentage portfolio growth, the company is confident that it can maintain stable asset quality, it said.
The company forecast that provisional expenses this year would remain unchanged from last year.
Chailease has entered the solar power sector and launched six projects since the end of 2017, with one project having come online in Kaohsiung’s Daliao District (大寮) on Monday last week.
Solar is growing steadily, thanks to favorable government policies and favorable returns, the company said.
“The company’s China loan portfolio continues to grow and improvement in the asset quality cycle is expected to hold,” DBS Vickers (Hong Kong) Ltd analyst Ken Shih (施耕宇) said in a note on Wednesday last week.
“Looking at the company’s experience in Taiwan, we believe that there is further room for the allowance-to-loan ratio of its operations in China to trend further downward over the long term,” Shih said, referring to the company’s provision for non-performing loans.
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