By Dipo Olowookere
Shareholders of a construction giant, Julius Berger Plc, will not have something close to the N2 dividend they received last year for the 2019 financial year.
This is because the board of the company has significantly slashed the dividend payout for the 2020 fiscal year by 80 per cent and this means they will only receive 40 kobo.
One of the reasons for this huge cut in the dividend payout is that the organisation did not perform well like it did when it paid the N2 to shareholders.
In its 2020 results, Julius Berger recorded an 86.4 per cent decline in the net profit as its post-tax profit slumped to N1.2 billion from N8.8 billion in 2019.
The pre-tax profit, according to the financial statements filed to the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) with hard-to-read figures, depreciated by 71.9 per cent to N3.9 billion from N13.9 billion recorded a year earlier.
Business Post reports that the poor bottom line in the 2020 numbers may have made the board reduce the cash reward for the period.
It was stated that the payment would be made to shareholders whose names appear on the register of members as at the close of business on May 28, 2021.
On June 17, 2021, the company’s Annual General Meeting (AGM) will take place at the Shehu Musa Yar’Adua Centre in Abuja at 11.00am and the dividend proposal would be pushed for authorisation.
If approved by the shareholders, the registrar, Greenwich Registrars and Data Solutions Limited, will pay the dividend electronically to shareholders on June 18, 2021.
A look at the top line of the results showed that the revenue generated in the year reduced to N241.8 billion from N266.4 billion and this was because of a decline in construction contracts last year due to the lockdown of economic activities in the second quarter of the year.
The federal government shut down the economy like others in the world to control the spread of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) and construction activities slowed down as most workers had to remain at home.
Adedapo Adesanya 
Modupe Gbadeyanka