Taiwan Pelican Express Co’s (台灣宅配通) board of directors has approved a proposal to distribute a cash dividend of NT$1.8 per share, the highest in the company’s history, as its net profit rose 29 percent annually last year thanks to booming e-commerce sales.
The home delivery service provider had offered cash dividends ranging from NT$0.45 to NT$1.2 per share from 2012 to last year, company data showed.
The proposal suggested a payout ratio of 82 percent, based on Taiwan Pelican’s earnings per share of NT$2.19 last year — up from NT$1.69 in 2019 — and a dividend yield of 5.57 percent given its share price of NT$32.3 yesterday.
Photo: CNA
The total planned dividend payout would be NT$171.84 million (US$6.07 million), it said in a filing with the Taiwan Stock Exchange on Friday.
Launched in 2000, Taiwan Pelican offers customer-to-customer, business-to-customer and customer-to-business delivery services.
Last year, the company’s net profit grew 29 percent year-on-year to NT$209 million.
It reported revenue of NT$3.98 billion, which increased 7.3 percent annually due to rising demand for parcel shipments as more people were shopping online amid the COVID-19 outbreak, Taiwan Pelican said.
Gross margin improved to 17.2 percent, from 16.62 percent a year earlier, company data showed.
Taiwan Pelican, which has 16 logistics and warehousing centers and owns 1,100 delivery trucks, said that it would expand its same-day delivery service to attract new customers and raise its efficiency by installing smart conveyor systems in two centers so that packages could be automatically categorized and distributed.
Meanwhile, Dimerco Express Group (中菲行), which offers global freight-forwarding and logistics services, saw its net profit jump 170 percent year-on-year to NT$841 million for the first three quarters of last year, with earnings per share of NT$6.68, up from NT$2.46 a year earlier, company data showed.
The increase could be attributed to an increase in freight rates of air cargo and sea freight, as well as Dimerco’s supply chain management, which helped its clients deliver their goods despite COVID-19-related disruptions, the firm’s spokesperson Jack Ruan (阮耀樟) said by telephone yesterday.
Based on airlines’ and shipping companies’ pricing information, the company expects freight rates to remain at a comparatively high level for the first half of this year, Ruan said.
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