Invalda INVL, one of the Baltic region’s leading asset management groups, will pay out EUR 9.3 million of dividends to its shareholders. That decision was adopted at the meeting of Invalda INVL shareholders held on 30 April.
It was decided to allocate a dividend of EUR 0.80 per share. Dividends will be entitled to those persons who are shareholders of Invalda INVL at the end of 15 May this year. Based on the company’s share price on 30 April, the dividend yield is 10.7%.
“The company’s activities and the financial resources it has, permit allocating part of earnings for dividends, and in the current economic situation that decision will give shareholders additional opportunities to invest or use the received funds for other purposes,” Invalda INVL President Darius Šulnis said.
During the shareholders meeting, decisions were also adopted regarding further implementation of the group’s employee stock option programme. “The asset management business relies on the team’s skills and motivation to set appropriate long-term goals and achieve them. Stock options are a chance for employees to become shareholders in the company and receive part of the value created by their common efforts,” Darius Šulnis said.
It was decided that, on the basis of options contracts concluded this year, in 2023 employees of Invalda INVL and companies in which Invalda INVL owns more than 50% of shares would obtain the right to acquire up to 175 000 ordinary registered shares of Invalda INVL with a nominal value of EUR 0.29, paying a price per share of EUR 1.
In addition, the strike price of the 2017 options contracts under which employees of Invalda INVL group companies this year will acquire up to 80 751 shares, was adjusted. Considering the dividends being paid out, the price was reduced correspondingly and will be EUR 0.20 per share.
At the shareholders meeting it was also decided to allow the company to buy back its own shares. “The board of the company intends to consider the issue of buying back shares after publication and evaluation of the results for the first quarter of this year, which will already reflect some of the loss of investments’ value due to the crisis provoked by the coronavirus pandemic,” Darius Šulnis said.
For a share buy-back, an existing reserve of EUR 9.9 million would be used. The maximum share buy-back price is the value of consolidated equity per share, calculated according to the last consolidated equity figures for Invalda INVL published prior to the board’s decision, with a minimum buy-back price of EUR 1 per share.
The company’s audited 2019 results were also approved at the meeting. Its equity at the end of 2019 was EUR 86.8 million, or EUR 7.47 per share (32.5% and 31.8% more than at the end of 2018, respectively). The net profit that Invalda INVL earned last year was EUR 20.8 million, compared to a 2018 figure of EUR 340 000. The change in profit was mainly due to the increased value of investments.
Invalda INVL, operating since 1991, is one of the leading asset management groups in the Baltic countries. The companies that the group owns in Lithuania and Latvia manage more than 20 mutual and pension funds (2nd and 3rd pillar), alternative investments, individual portfolios, private equity, and private debt financial instruments. At the end of 2019, the group’s companies had more than EUR 1 billion of assets under management, entrusted to them by over 200 000 clients in Lithuania and Latvia as well as international investors. The shares of Invalda INVL have traded on the Nasdaq Baltic securities exchange since 1995.