KARACHI, July 3: National Investment Trust (NIT) has declared a record dividend of Rs2.55 per unit for the period ended June 30, 2004, up by 80 paisa over last year.

This was stated by Managing Director NIT, Tariq Iqbal Khan, at a press conference here on Saturday. He said the board of directors of NIT had approved this dividend in its meeting held on Saturday.

He said the Trust would pay Rs4 billion among its 69,000 unit holders as dividend countrywide. The dividend warrants would reach unit holders by mid of August this year, he said.

He pointed out that NIT has recorded the highest profit of Rs4.233 billion for the period under review while the total sales of units was also unprecedented at Rs11.757 billion, up by Rs2.1 billion over last year.

Similarly. a record number of NIT units worth Rs9.657 billion were redeemed during the year.

Khan said 2003-2004 was the historic year for NIT and its unit holders as the Trust has created several records in terms of profit, sales, income, dividend and net asset value.

He said the NIT had once again outperformed its benchmark of KSE 100-Index by a healthy margin of 5.44 per cent during the period under review whereas its net asset value (NAV) surged by 60.6 per cent.

The net income of the fund also surged by 42 per cent to Rs4.872 billion by the end of June 30, 2004 while the net assets of the Fund also swelled to Rs53.597 billion during the same period.

The capital gain realised during the year amounted to a record Rs1.939bn while dividend income also appreciated to Rs2.485bn during the same period.-APP