Cork giant paying dividends

Portugal’s cork giant Amorim has voted to pay a dividend of 18.5 cents per share to shareholders. The decision was agreed at the recent company’s General Shareholders Meeting and announced on Friday. 13 April. The payout will be distributed from the end of April according to the Portuguese Securities Market Commission (CMVM).

Shareholders at Portugal’s cork firm Amorim are to receive dividends of 18.5 cents per share it was announced on Friday (13 April).

Taking into account the current quoted value of Amorim shares at €11.50 per share, the amount to be distributed to shareholders corresponds to a dividend yield of 1.6%.

The company states that those shareholders who have not proceeded with converting securitised shares into book-entry shares may not exercise the respective right to dividends until they carry out the conversion, the payout being made immediately on conversion.

Amorim ended 2017 with profits of €73 million, down 28.9% on 2016. The company run by António Rios Amorim, states that the results are in line with the previous year’s if the impact of the sale of US Floors in 2016 were not taken into account and which helped results that year.

The net €73 million result “is in line with last year (+0.3%) excluding the effect of the sale of US Floors in 2016,” said Amorim in a press release sent to the CMVM. The cork enterprise netted €30 million for the sale of its 25% share in US Floors.

Sales increased 9.2% in 2017 with a turnover of €701,6 million. Per business unit, bottle corks increased 12.8% to €477.1 million after taking over the companies Bourassé and Sodiliège. Without this sales growth would have been 6.7%.

The wall coverings and insulation business increased sales by 3.8% to €121.5 million and sales of raw materials climbed by around 5% to €156.1 million.