ISLAMABAD, April 28: More than half of the companies, which held their annual general meetings during the first three quarters of 2002-03, declared dividend for their shareholders, according to the data compiled by the Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP).

This is about 7 per cent more than the number of companies that had declared dividend during the whole of 2001-02, thanks to the close vigilance and enforcement of Code of Corporate Governance conducted by the SECP, a commission source remarked.

There were 725 listed companies in all during that year, out of which 315 companies, that is, 43.45 per cent declared dividend.

During the current financial year, a number of companies were delisted or merged in other countries, resulting in shrinkage of their total number to 707.

According to the data maintained by the staff of SECP’s enforcement and monitoring division, a total of 611 listed companies announced their results for 2002-03 up to April 17, 2003. Out of these, 306 (50.08 per cent) companies declared dividend.

The number of companies declaring dividend for their shareholders during the remainder of the year is likely to go up still further as more companies hold their AGMs before June 30, 2003.

According to sector-wise analysis of the companies, the SECP found that food & allied industries scored the highest score in that 80 per cent of these declared divided. In absolute numbers, there are a total of 18 units in this sector. During the period under review , 15 companies announced their results, out of which 12 have declared dividend so far.

Mutual Funds, totalling 37, ranked second with 28 declaring dividend. Interestingly, last year too, the same number of mutual funds had declared dividend for their shareholders.

Out of four companies in the construction sector not a single entity has declared dividend in consistency with the previous year. Second lowest was the vanaspati & allied industries sector with only a quarter (three) companies declaring dividend, out of 12 that made public their results.

The number of modaraba companies decreased from 45 of the previous year to 43 in the current financial year following mergers. Percentage-wise, their performance in terms of dividend deteriorated by over 10 per cent. In absolute numbers, however, their number has so far stood at 20, only one up from the whole of previous year. This is 32.14 per cent of the 28 LCs that unveiled their results.

As compared to modaraba companies, however, the leasing companies continued to put up a rather dismal performance. Their total number has reduced from 30 to 29. But the number of leasing companies (28), which have declared dividend so far, dropped to 9 from 13 in the previous year.

The insurance sector came under regulatory discipline of the SECP in 2001-02. In 2002-03, insurance companies totalled 38, one down from previous year. Up to April 2003, 28 of these companies declared their results.

But the number of those declaring dividend is only 14 so far, as against 18 during the whole of previous year. Sources in the SECP expected their number to increase as more of these entities hold their AGMs during the next two months or so.