Banks lead the pack as Kenyan stocks pay out $1bn in dividends
TLDR
- Listed banks accounted for 49% ($506 million) of total dividends from NSE-listed companies in 2023.
- Non-banks like Safaricom and Jubilee are expected to release financial statements soon, potentially increasing dividend payouts.
- 30 NSE-listed companies, including Deacons, Kenya Airways, and ARM Cement, did not distribute dividends to shareholders last year.
Based on data from the Nairobi Securities Exchange (NSE), listed banks accounted for around half of all dividends paid out by firms on the exchange for the year ended December 2023.
Dividends per share for banks totaled $506 million, representing a 49% share of the total dividends from all listed companies. Although more payouts are expected from non-banks in the short term, with companies like Safaricom and Jubilee due to release financial statements.
However, nearly half of the NSE-listed companies, totaling 30 firms, did not distribute dividends to shareholders in the past year. This includes suspended counters such as Deacons, Kenya Airways, and ARM Cement.
Key Takeaways
The substantial dividend payouts from the banking sector have attracted investor interest, contributing to notable share price gains throughout the year. Listed banks have seen their share prices surge, with an average increase of 17.4% year-to-date. Equity Group stands out with a remarkable 32.3% surge in its share price. Interestingly, Equity Group also distributed the highest dividend payout to shareholders in absolute terms. Other notable banking sector dividend payers include StanChart, Co-op Bank, and Absa Bank Kenya. NCBA Group ranks higher than Stanbic Holdings Plc, I&M Holdings, BK Group, and DTB in terms of dividend payouts. However, Housing Finance Group and KCB were the exceptions among banks, as they did not pay dividends. KCB attributed its decision to skip dividends to the need to preserve capital adequacy buffers amidst elevated expenses, including high loan provisioning costs, as it heads into 2024.
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