E-Malt.com News article: Kenya: East African Breweries to list 161 million extra shares

East African Breweries Limited will list an additional 161 million shares at the stock exchange after Thursday's approval for bonus pay-out by its shareholders during an AGM, The Nation (Nairobi) published November 2.

The shareholders walked out of Nairobi's Safari Park hotel a share richer for every five bonus they went in holding, paid in part of last year dividend pay-out. The brewer, made up of six subsidiaries, whose shares also trade in Uganda and Tanzania exchanges, now total 791 million shares up from 659 million shares.


The shareholders also approved a cash dividend pay-out of Sh5.55 per share with the new shares participating. "This equates to a further dividend payment of about Sh731 million taking the full year dividend to Sh8.81 per share, a pay-out of Sh5.8 billion," the company noted.

The pay-out comes after the company reported a 24 per cent increase in its annual pre-tax profit to hit Sh10.6 billion for the period ending June 2007.

The growth was realised from an increase in beer and spirits uptake. Translated on four-year compounded growth, this equals to a 15 per cent rise in Kenya 12 per cent in Uganda and 8 per cent in Tanzania.

EABL is the second most profitable company for companies that releases their results to the public, after being overtaking by Safaricom last year.

Its earnings per share rose to 9.31 from last year's Sh8.18, an increase of 14 per cent. To drive its future growth, the brewer has invested in increased capacity and new infrastructure of its subsidiaries.



02 November, 2007