Plzensky Prazdroj, the Czech unit of the world's second largest brewer SABMiller, said it would pay a 1.96 billion crown ($67.03 million) dividend on 2002 profits, Reuters reported. The company said the first-ever dividend, equal to 100% of the nominal value of the brewery's shares, was approved at an extraordinary meeting on Tuesday. According to Prazdroj spokesman Alexej Bechtin, the meeting also voted to appoint Steve Woodward to the board of directors, replacing outgoing Chairman and Managing Director Tony van Kralinger who will head SAB's operations in South Africa.

Woodward has also been appointed new managing director and is due to assume the chairmanship on Wednesday, the spokesman said. Prazdroj, based in the western Czech city of Plzen (Pilsen), makes the original Pilsner Urquell lager and is the largest brewing group in the Czech Republic, a country with the largest beer consumption per capita in the world.

The company has said in the past that a dividend payout would not influence its investment plans aimed at doubling output. SABMiller holds a 97.6% stake in the company, which controls the Czech Radegast and Velke Popovice breweries, and the Saris brewery in Slovakia. Prazdroj raised output by 13% last year to 9.0 million hectolitres, mainly thanks to strong exports. The company has said it would release financial results after the end of March, when SABMiller's fiscal year ends.

07 March, 2003