HM Sampoerna to pay Rp 13.63 trillion in dividends

DIVIDEND DISTRIBUTION - JAKARTA. Publicly listed cigarette producer PT Handala Manjaya Sampoerna has announced a plan to distribute Rp 13.63 trillion (US$948.47 billion) in dividends, more than the profits the company made in 2018.

The dividends are equal to 100.96 percent of the profits of Rp 13.5 trillion, up by 6.8 percent year-on-year. This means that the value of the dividend of each share would be Rp 117.2.

HM Sampoerna director William R. Giff attributed the higher dividend payout ratio to the company’s decision to include some of its 2017 retained profit for last year’s dividends.

“The higher-than-profit dividend is also our way to give the best to our shareholders,” HM Sampoerna president director Mindaugas Trumpaitis added during a press briefing in Jakarta.

The company says that revenues rose by 7.7 percent yoy to Rp 106.7 trillion.

During the first quarter of this year, the company’s revenues only rose by 2.9 percent to Rp 23.8 trillion.

Trumpaitis said the slight revenue increase was attributed to the company’s slumping sales that decreased by 32.2 percent to 22.1 billion units.

However, HM Sampoerna still recorded an  8.4-percent increase in profits to Rp 3.3 trillion during the first three months of this year.