KARACHI, April 29: Pakistan Industrial Credit & Investment Corporation (PICIC) has decided to hand out 12.5 per cent cash dividend and 35 per cent right shares to its shareholders for the first quarter of 2004.

The decision was taken at a meeting of the board of directors of PICIC held on Thursday. The board decided that the right shares would be issued at the rate of Rs40 per share i.e. at a premium of Rs30 per share.

According to an announcement made by the PICIC it earned an operating profit of around Rs360m during January-March 2004 up more than three times the profit of Rs81.4m made in a year-ago period.

The after-tax profit increased to Rs374m depicting a six-fold increase from Rs51m during the corresponding period of last year.The earning per share also improved to Rs3.24 from only 44 paisa.