National Investment Trust (NIT) continued its success story and declared a record dividend of 33 percent for the year ended June 30, 2005, following steady restructuring of its portfolio and investment made in high yielding stocks. This was stated by Tariq Iqbal Hasan, Chairman and Managing Director of NIT, at a press briefing on Saturday.
He said that during the recent turmoil in the stock market, the portfolio of the Trust remained intact, rather it sold shares before this downturn, and had enough liquidity to redeploy its funds in the sagging capital market.
"We supported the market during that period, and bought shares having attractive dividend yields, and good values helped us to seek fresh investment in the stock market," he said. The Trust made investment to halt the tally of declines aimed to support its own funds, he added.
The chairman said that NIT declared record high dividend of Rs 3.30, or 33 percent, dividend per unit for the last fiscal year, as compared with 25.5 percent, or Rs 2.55 per share.
He said that the amount payable to its unit holders is around Rs 5.3 billion, against Rs 4.1 billion paid last year, in accordance with the pronounced policy to pay maximum dividends out of the current income.
Iqbal said that net income of the Trust for the financial year 2004-05 registered a growth of 30.4 percent, increasing to Rs 5.5 billion from Rs 4.2 billion of last year. This translates into earning per unit of Rs 3.47 for the year as compared to the earning per unit of Rs 2.63 for last year.
He said that earnings from National Refinery Ltd privatisation are not included during the past year's financial year. The Trust is expected to get Rs 5.8 billion as proceeds from NRL sell-off as the government sold the refinery's shares at Rs 483 a piece as compared to prevailing market price of Rs 325. He said that the Trust has almost 29 percent stake of National Refinery and nearly 19 percent, or 1.2 million, shares would be handed over to the Attock Group.
The chairman said he was delighted over the performance of the Trust and added that achievements in last couple of years were because of the team's efforts and all members of the Trust, fund managers, resource persons, professionals and other officials have helped make the NIT a success story.
Iqbal said that as a result of enhanced and prudent stock market activities capital gains realised have shown an even stronger growth of 35 percent in 2004-05. Capital gains realised during the period rose to an all-time high level of Rs 2.66 billion as compared to Rs 1.97 billion recorded last year. NIT traded record high shares worth of Rs 17.6 billion during the year under review. This enhanced activity not only resulted in increase in capital gain realisation but also provided support to the stock market. It would not be out of place to mention here that NIT had been following a consistent basis to generate the activity in the stock market with a view to support the market through its operations, enhance the confidence of investors, work only on delivery-based purchases and not to sell in the falling market.
"The net assets of the Fund have depicted a robust growth of 34 percent by increasing from Rs 49.5 billion as on June 30, 2004, to Rs 66.2 billion as on June 30, 2005," he said.
All redemption's were met to the utmost satisfaction of the investors that has helped in further enhancing the confidence of unit holders.
The sale of NIT units stood at Rs 9.8 billion as against redemption of Rs 10.3 billion during the year, he added.
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