MTN Nigeria Communications Plc, Dangote Cement Plc, GTCO Plc, and 55 others have paid their investors over N732.91 billion as dividends year-to-date (YTD).
Dividends are a company’s way of sharing its profits with investors who retain the organisation’s stocks over a holding period up to a qualifying date.
A statement released by the Nigerian Exchange (NGX) Monday noted that the 58 companies cut across ten sectors of quoted companies on the bourse.
The breakdown is as follows: Financial services (21), consumer goods (7), industrial goods (6), oil & gas (5), healthcare (4), services (4), ICT (3), natural resources (2), construction/real estate (2), agriculture (2) and conglomerates (2).
The NGX stated that: “Overall, Dangote Cement made the highest dividend payout, followed by MTN, GTCO, BUA Cement and Stanbic IBTC as the top five highest dividend payments so far.”
The financial sector has the highest number of companies paying dividends and value of dividends, with GTCO leading the pack with a payout valued at N79.46 billion.
In the consumer goods sector, Nestle leads amongst the seven companies with a pay-out of N28.12b.
Fidson leads the healthcare sector with a pay-out of N521.59 million. Total Nigeria takes the lead in oil & gas at N2.06 billion; UACN leads the conglomerates with N3.45 billion.
In the industrial goods sector, Dangote Cement Plc is the leader with N272.65b.
MTN Nigeria takes the centre stage in the ICT sector, with N92.61 billion, while Caverton takes the lead in services with N335.05 million; and Okomu leads in the agriculture sector with N6.67 billion.