Described as the Godfather of Banking in Nigeria by Forbes Africa, Jim Ovia who is the founder and chairman of Zenith Bank Plc is set to earn a massive N1.1 billion in dividends for the half-year period ended June 2021.
Checks into the financials of Zenith Bank Plc revealed that the highly revered banker still remains the single majority shareholder of the bank as he directly owns 3,546,199,395 units of shares, translating to about 11.29% of the bank’s total shareholdings. By the virtue of this, he remains the only substantial shareholder of the bank with more than 5% of the issued share capital of the bank.
Recall that Zenith Bank Plc in a statement released via the Nigerian Exchange Limited (NGX) had earlier proposed an interim dividend of about 30 kobo for the 2021 half-year period. This puts the total value of the dividend to be earned by the business tycoon at N1, 063,859,818.5. It is pertinent to note that the dividend is subject to a 10% withholding tax.
Key Drivers
The Bank had displayed resilience during the first six months of the year. It reported a marginal growth of 2.2% in its profit after tax figures despite a decline in its revenue from N346.1 billion as at HY 2020 to N345.6 billion during the period under review.
The bank’s interest income declined by 6% YoY due to the prevailing low yield environment which affected yields on some marketable securities, however, the impressive growth recorded in fees on electronic products (91%), account maintenance fee (51%) and agency & collection fees (50%) sustained net non-interest income which grew by 9% YoY.
READ: First Bank MD Purchases Additional 17.1 Million Shares Worth N121.6 Million
Timeline
According to our findings, Jim Ovia like other shareholders will cash in on the N9.42 billion worth of dividends which will be disbursed by Zenith Bank on the 20th of September, 2021. Did I just say N9.42 billion? Yes, Zenith Bank will pay 30 kobo per share on all its 31,396,493,786 outstanding shares.
If you are shareholder in the bank like Jim Ovia, this is what you have to do in order to benefit from this dividend windfall;
- Make sure you complete the e-dividend registration and mandate the Registrar (Veritas Registrar Limited) to pay your accrued dividends directly into your bank accounts.
- Make sure you name is enlisted in the Register of Members as at close of business on 10th of September, 2021. This is because the Register will be closed three days later-13th of September, 2021, to enable the bank facilitate the disbursement process.
