Wisdom Marine Lines Co’s (慧洋海運) board of directors has approved a proposal to distribute a cash dividend of NT$1 per share this year, down from NT$1.5 a year earlier, as the dry bulk shipping company’s net profit plunged 95 percent annually to NT$111.41 million (US$3.9 million) last year.
Earnings per share were NT$0.15 last year, the company said on Tuesday.
The cash dividend suggested a yield of 3.03 percent based on the company’s closing share price of NT$32.95 on Tuesday. The stock yesterday rose 8.65 percent to NT$35.8.
Photo: Wang Yi-hung, Taipei Times
Wisdom Marine said that it has a rosy outlook for this year, as it expects freight demand to rise due to a recovering global economy and the distribution of COVID-19 vaccinations worldwide.
The Baltic Dry Index — which tracks the shipping costs of raw materials such as coal, rice and wheat — has continued to trend upward this year, the firm said
“It is going to be the best year for the bulk shipping market since the global financial turmoil in 2009,” Wisdom Marine chairman James Lan (藍俊昇) told an investors’ conference in Taipei.
Wisdom’s revenue increased 23.41 percent year-on-year to NT$1.04 billion in February after rising 11.94 percent to NT$1.12 billion in January, company data showed.
Lan said that he is optimistic about the company’s operations in the next few months, as it is nearly the traditional peak season for bulk shipping.
“Our pretax earnings totaled NT$373 million in the first two months of this year, or NT$0.5 per share, which is already higher than our earnings per share for the whole of last year,” Lan said. “Earnings for March are expected to continue rising ... and we are upbeat for this year.”
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