BEIJING, March 13 (Xinhua) – Chinese insurer Ping An Insurance (Group) Company of China, Ltd. (601318.SH; 02318.HK) announced generous cash dividend distribution and A-share repurchase plans to reward investors late Tuesday, according to Xinhua-run Shanghai Securities News.
Last year, the company made net profits of 107.404 billion yuan, up 20.6 percent over the previous year thanks to improving industry environment, its wide finance business coverage and rising profitability of its science- and technology-driven business units.
Exuberant over the data, the company intended to distribute an annual cash dividend of 1.72 yuan per share to its shareholders, up 14.7 percent year on year. Together with the 0.20 yuan per share special cash dividend distribution for its 30th anniversary in the first quarter of 2018, the company offered in total 1.92 yuan per share cash dividend to its shareholders annually, up 28.0 percent year on year.
Under China’s insurance sector structural adjustment, Ping An Insurance (Group) Company of China, Ltd. optimized continuously its business structure, resulting in its well-performing core business. Last year, the value of its new life insurance and health care insurance business edged up 16.9 percent year on year in the second half year of 2018 and 7.3 percent on year annually.
What’s noteworthy, the company’s finance and healthcare technology-driven business also posted strong growth momentum. In 2018, operating profits from these businesses rose to 6.77 billion yuan, taking up 6.0 percent of the total.
Confident about its future performances, Ping An Insurance (Group) Company of China, Ltd. unveiled late Tuesday a plan to buy back with its own capital no less than five billion yuan but at maximum 10 billion yuan of its A shares at a price of no higher than 101.24 yuan per share in one year.
As the company said, the A shares to be repurchased will all be used for its employee stock ownership plan.
What’s more, the company reassured investors by saying that its management members and two firms owning more than five percent of its A-shares have no plans for reducing their holdings in short term.
In the future, analysts did not exclude possibility of more A-share repurchase plans by Ping An Insurance (Group) Company of China, Ltd. On Tuesday, the company’s fifth meeting of its 11th board of directors approved a proposal giving its board of directors a general authorization to repurchase no more than 10 percent of its total capital stocks.
On one hand, the general authorization created imagination over its future share repo and on the other, brought flexibility to its future repo operations, a move likely to help the company’s board of directors pick a suitable opportunity and timing to conduct the share repo, analysts held. Enditem (Edited by Duan Jing, duanjing@xinhua.org)
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