Declares 5pc interim cash dividend
The Lafarge Surma Cement, a multinational company, for the first time after its enlistment with the stock exchanges in 2003, has turned into a profitable company.
The company on Tuesday declared 5 per cent interim cash dividend for 2014 based on its first five-month (January-May) earning, after becoming profitable.Lafarge as a green-field company in 2003 raised capital from the stock market.
Till September last year its cumulative loss stood at Tk 206.76 crore but the company continued to make profits in last several months with its cumulative loss coming down to Tk 31.62 crore in March this year.
It earned a profit of Tk 62.79 crore in January-March quarter.
As per the company’s statement posted on the Dhaka Stock Exchange it earned a profit of Tk 114.41 crore in January-May with the company offsetting the cumulative loss.
The company’s earning per share stood at Tk 0.99 in January-May. Its net asset value per share stood at Tk 10.51 during the period.
DSE officials said that hurried declaration of interim dividend considering a year’s first five month’s earning is rare.
They said that the company’s share price had advanced abnormally before the declaration of the interim dividend giving rise to suspicion of share price manipulation.
A Lafarge official, however, said that there was nothing unusual about the interim dividend declaration after five months of a year as the company made profit.
The company’s share price, however, declined by 6.52 per cent to Tk 86.50 after the dividend declaration.
A shareholder of the company, meanwhile, at the annual general meeting of Lafarge on Tuesday alleged that the company had fleeced consumer of the cement brand as it had given 3-5 kilogram less cement in its 50-kg pack.
Admitting the fault, the company officials said that some bag had less cement because of technical faults.
They claimed that the company had rectified the faults and the consumers were now getting cement at right weight.
-With New Age input
