This year again, the VZMD (Pan-Slovenian Investors' & Shareholders' Association) is closely following the situation and influence of the "corona crisis" on the public limited companies, from which Slovenian shareholders will receive quite different rewards for their capital investments or rather their "company loyalty" – despite the joyous fact that most of them performed quite well. Based on the published proposals of the managements and supervisory boards regarding the distribution of dividends, it is becoming clear that many companies do not wish to give their shareholders the appropriate dividends that would reflect the good results from one and two years ago, the positive forecast for the future and the fact that many shareholders have unjustifiably been deprived last year already, as well as the budget of the Republic of Slovenia.
Like last year, the VZMD associates are pleased to highlight the company KRKA as a positive example, which is again suggesting a record-breaking dividend in the gross amount of € 5.00 per share, which is a 17.6% increase compared to last year and a 100% increase compared to 2015. Unfortunately, many other companies do not use such remarkable good practices, which is why the VZMD has already begun drafting counter-proposals regarding the distribution of profits or (higher) dividends for the general meetings, which will be submitted immediately following the convocations of general meetings. While the VZMD has already warned of the remarkably low proposal regarding the dividend amount of ZAVAROVALNICA TRIGLAV, this week, SAVA RE published its proposal. The proposal by the management and the supervisory board was not as radically low as that of Zavarovalnica Triglav, however, after 2020, when they refused to pay (the promised) dividends, they proposed ten percent lower dividends (€ 0.85) compared to 2019 (€ 0.95).
A similar story occurred at NLB, where the management – with € 342 million of distributable profits – is suggesting a distribution of mere € 24.8 million (€ 1.24 per share) in the form of two dividends in June and September if this does not violate the rules of the Bank of Slovenia currently in force on the domestic level. We must not forget that in 2019, NLB, with € 194.5 million of distributable profits, paid its shareholders a dividend in the amount of € 7.13 per share, totaling at € 142.6 million. Supposedly, this year’s proposal for the distribution of dividends represents the highest amount currently permissible under ECB, while the management of the bank still wants to distribute € 92.2 million (€ 4.61 per share) of the Group's profit in 2020 amongst themselves.
Again this year, the above mentioned proposals are supported by the convenient but harmful "recommendations" of the Insurance Supervision Agency (AZN), the Securities Market Agency (ATVP) and the Bank of Slovenia (BS), which, despite the repeated public invitations by the VZMD, have yet to submit any concrete analysis, which would justify such measures. On the contrary, the shareholders can read various articles in the media on how well the public limited companies are performing, while in many cases small slumps are typically the result of additional accruals due to the "corona situation" and lower income attributable to non-received dividends. The VZMD thus again hopes that the retained (in many cases record-breaking) earnings from 2019-2021 will not be siphoned off through various awards but will instead be paid to the owners, the biggest one often directly or indirectly certainly being the Republic of Slovenia, which could certainly use any financial income it can get into its budget.
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