Far EasTone Telecommunications Co (
Far EasTone's board yesterday also agreed to set up an audit committee to further enhance its corporate governance.
The cash dividend of NT$3.1 a share represented about an 8-percent yield for the company's investors, compared to Far EasTone's closing price of NT$39 yesterday on the Taiwan Stock Exchange.
Taiwanese telecom companies tend to deliver comfy cash dividends to attract investors in pursuit of stable returns. Last year, the mobile operator delivered a cash dividend of NT$3 a share.
"Cheap valuations and sound, sustainable yield keep us at `Buy,'" said Citigroup analyst Anand Ramachandran in the report released in mid-January.
Ramachandran gave a target price of NT$45.6 per share for Far EasTone.
Far EasTone posted an audited net income of roughly NT$14.72 billion (US$456 million), or NT$3.8 per share, making the cash dividend payout ratio around 81 percent, similar to those of rivals Chunghwa Telecom Co (
For the first three months of this year, Far EasTone forecast that pre-tax profits would hold steady at NT$4.11 billion from a year ago, the company said yesterday.
Earnings per share, however, are predicted to decline to NT$0.85, compared to NT$0.98 a share earned in the first quarter of last year, according to statistics the company filed to the Taiwan Stock Exchange.
Projected revenues for the first quarter are NT$17.98 billion, compared with NT$10.33 billion during the same period last year.
Far EasTone earlier reported pre-tax profits for January of NT$1.3 billion, a 13 percent decline from the same period last year.
But despite that drop, Taiwan Ratings Corp (
Far EasTone has substantially reduced its debt to NT$9.6 billion as of the end of last year from NT$22.8 billion in 2004, Taiwan Ratings said in a statement released on Thursday.
Far EasTone now has 6.1 million subscribers in total, representing about 30 percent of Taiwan's 19 million mobile users.
It has about 110,000 3G phone users.
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