COMPANY • Safaricom to Pay Interim Dividend of Ksh 25.64 Billion • Khusoko

Safaricom will pay an interim dividend of Ksh 25.64 Billion to shareholders for the current financial year ending March.

The interim dividend is equivalent to KSh0.64 per share which will be paid on or about March 31 to shareholders on record as of March 17.

For the year ended March 31 2021, Safaricom paid an interim dividend of KSh18 billion equivalent to KSh 0.45 per share.

“The board of Safaricom is pleased to announce that at its meeting that was held on February 24, 2022, it was resolved to approve payment of an interim dividend of KSh0.64 per ordinary share held amounting to KSh25.6 billion,” Safaricom said in a statement.

George Bodo, head of research at Genghis Capital in a Tweet was of the view that with telco’s Capital expenditures (CapEx) “quite colossal”, it would have instead conserved cash.

“Safaricom’s (interim) dividend decisions are beginning to be too random… I would have expected the company to be on a cash conservation mode,” he said.

The telco lowered its full-year forecast for earnings which includes its investment in Ethiopia which is expected to range between 107-110 billion shillings.

“On an underlying basis excluding Ethiopia, we revise our earnings before interest and tax guidance given back in May 2021 from Ksh 105 billion to Ksh 108 billion to the range of Ksh 107 to Ksh 110 billion and maintained the CAPEX guidance given before at Ksh 40 billion to Ksh 43 billion for the financial year 2022,” the company said during the announcement of financial results for its Half Year ended September 30, 2021.