Chemrez sets P500-M share buyback, grants cash dividends

Chemrez Technologies Inc., the country’s leading biodiesel, resins and oleochemicals producer, will grant cash dividends to its stockholders and implement a P500 million share buyback program, a top company official said.

ChemrezTech chief finance officer Francis A. Caluag said the company’s board of directors declared a regular cash dividend of two centavos per share and a special cash dividend of four centavos per share.

Caluag said the cash dividend amounts to P83.87 million or roughly 89 percent of ChemrezTech’s 2006 net profit of P94.36 million.

Entitled to the cash dividends are shareholders on record as of Sept. 6, 2007.  The dividends are payable on Oct. 1.

 “This is the company’s way of sharing the benefits of its much improved financial performance with its shareholders. While we do not have a set dividend policy, ChemrezTech will endeavor to pay dividends whenever it is making money,” Caluag said. 

Caluag said the payout was based on earnings which antedated ChemrezTech’s substantial entry into the wholesale biodiesel market, resulting from the implementation of the Biofuels Act only last May.

The buy-back program, on the other hand, involves nine percent of ChemrezTech’s current market capitalization.

Caluag said management feels the current market price of the company’s shares do not reflect their fair value and that “the share price has been unduly affected by the downturn in the local and regional stock markets.”

He, however, assured investors that ChemrezTech remains conscious of the need to maintain market liquidity and is ready to release the treasury shares back into the market at the appropriate time.

The program will be executed in the open market through the facilities of the Philippine Stock Exchange.