- Ernest & Young appointed the Company’s independent auditors
Safaricom shareholders on Thursday approved all motions put forth during the Company’s 12th Annual General Meeting including a final KSh 1.40 dividend per ordinary share up from Ksh 1.25 paid in 2019.
The disbursement, which is equivalent to 80 percent of its normalized earnings (Ksh 56.09 billion), is a 12 percent increase from last year. “more than 100 percent higher than it was five years ago in 2015,” said the telco.
The Kenyan Government is expected to receive Ksh 19.63 billion.
“As a purpose-driven business, Safaricom has been prioritizing support to Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises. We hope that the dividends they receive as shareholders will give the much-needed boost for their businesses during this difficult COVID-19 pandemic period even as we come up with ways to ensure we support them post COVID-19,” said Mr. Nicholas Nganga, the current chairman.
“The Board remains committed to increasing margins, rewarding shareholders, and investing in the business for the long term,” said outgoing SafaricomCFO, Sateesh Kamath.
Going into the future, Peter Ndegwa, Safaricom CEO said they are committed to delivering on their strategy in growing shareholder’s wealth as they deliver on “our purpose of transforming lives”.
“Looking ahead, we will leverage the strength of our balance sheet and our resilient business model to ensure we continue to innovate and generate efficiencies to deliver sustained returns to our shareholders.”
The shareholders also re-elected Ms. Rose Ogenga as an independent non-executive director. Together with Dr Bitange Ndemo, Mrs Esther Koimett and Mr Mohamed Joosub were elected to continue serving as members of the Board Audit Committee.
Further, 99.9 percent of the shareholders voted to appoint Messrs Ernest & Young as the Company’s independent auditors and authorizing the Directors to fix their remuneration for the ensuing financial year.
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For the Financial Year Ending March 31, 2020, Safaricom posted a 19.5 percent jump in full-year profits to Ksh 73.66 billion ($747 million), with revenues being spurred on by the company’s acquisition of the M-Pesa mobile money platform from Vodafone.
Service revenue grew at a rate of 4.8 percent driven by recovery in mobile data revenue growth back to double digit, M-PESA and Fixed Service revenue growth along with sustained customer acquisition pushing subscriber base to 35.61 million
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