Unchanged dividends at SIF Muntenia

The dividends SIF Muntenia will disburse over the next few years might not keep up with inflation, as the company plans to maintain net dividends at around 400 ROL/share, that is the value of the dividend per share against the 2003 profit. “We set out to avoid an increase in dividends in arithmetic progression as it happened in the last few years. We’ll rather go for freezing the dividend level,” said Gheorghe Popa, chief executive of SIF Muntenia. He went on to say that part of the company’s profits and liquidity could be directed to a programme aimed at repurchasing the residual shares now held by nearly 9 million people. The SIFs distributed the residual shares in exchange for the dividends collected by the Private Ownership Funds (their predecessors that is) from the companies they held. SIF Muntenia’s portfolio comprises the highest amount of residual shares of all the five SIFs, 45%. Popa estimates a repurchasing programme would take at least four years. ZF