NIT to pay Rs3.321b dividend to unit holders

KARACHI - NIT has declared a dividend of Rs3.25 per unit for its unit holders for the year ended on June 30, 2009. The payment of dividend at Rs 3.25 per unit would involve a total payout of Rs 3.321 billion among its unit holders.
This was stated by Chairman and MD NIT Tariq Iqbal Khan while addressing a Press conference here on Monday at local hotel after the Board of Directors of National Investment Trust approved the dividend for the year ended 30th June.
Tariq Iqbal while responding to a question said that in anticipation of improved cash flow of NIT and larger-than-expected recovery in market liquidity position, the number of NIT unit holders would be increased in FY10. It would have positive impact on the earning and profitability portfolio of NIT.
He further mentioned that NIUT has earned a dividend income of Rs1,746m in FY09. Thus, the Fund has been able to maintain the level of dividend income earned by the Fund in the previous year in spite of the fact that FY-09 appeared to be a difficult year for the corporate sector due to the global financial crisis and economic meltdown.
He said during FY09, NIUT has earned a net profit of Rs4,198m. However, this figure of net profit is without an impairment loss of Rs15,395m booked on account of AFS Securities. It would be worth mentioning that the loss shown due to the regulatory requirement does not in anyway hamper the total return to the unit holders as the NAV has already been adjusted after accounting for this loss. Thus net profit earned by NIUT translates into earning per unit of Rs4.11. It may be necessary to mention here that if an impairment loss in AFS Securities and unrealised loss in respect of HFT Securities are accounted for, then it would turn into a per unit loss of Rs13.06 for NIUT for the year ended on 30.06.2009 which has already been adjusted in the net asset value of Rs27.14 per unit.
He also added that the gross sale of NIT units (including CIPs) stood at Rs6,885m against gross sale of Rs17,765m in the last year. Net sale of units by NIUT depicted a huge growth of 180pc increasing from Rs1,973m in FY08 to Rs5,517m in FY09.
Number of units outstanding in respect of NIUT surpassed the figure of 1.0 billion which is considered a landmark achievement by any equity fund in Pakistan. NIUT has also shown a tremendous growth in respect of number of unit holders, which has increased from 53,849 as on 30.06.08 to 55,820 as on 30.06.09. This indicates that investors have reposed a great confidence in NIUT despite the fact that in general the market remained under pressure.
While analysing the performance of NIT during the period under review, he said NIUT has out performed the benchmark of KSE-100 Index by a margin of 0.24pc where Net Asset Value of NIT unit declined by 41.48pc from Rs 46.38 as on June 30, 2008 (Ex- Dividend) to Rs 27.14 on June 30, 2009 against a decline of 41.72pc in KSE-100 index during the same period.