The Western Bus Station Joint Stock Company (WCS) has just announced the list of shareholders eligible for a 144% cash dividend advance for 2023, equivalent to VND 14,400 per share. The last registration date to receive the dividend advance is March 15, and the payment date is March 28. With 2.5 million outstanding shares, it is estimated that the Western Bus Station will spend VND 36 billion to pay the dividend advance to shareholders.
The dividend rate just announced far exceeds the previously approved plan. According to the Resolution of the Annual General Meeting of Shareholders in 2023, WCS stated that the dividend rate for 2023 will be based on the actual business performance of the company and will not be lower than 20%.
Moreover, this is also the highest dividend rate of WCS in the past 3 years. The Western Bus Station is known as one of the companies with high and regular dividends, with a rate of 20%. In fact, in 2018 and 2019, the company paid extremely high dividends of 400% and 516% respectively.
In the market, WCS is one of the stocks with the highest price on the stock exchange. As of the morning session on March 1, the WCS price exceeded VND 200,000 per share, a slight increase of 7.5% compared to the beginning of the year. However, the liquidity of this stock is quite low, with only a few hundred to a few thousand units traded, and there are even sessions without any transactions.
The reason for this may be the concentrated ownership structure of this company. Currently, the Western Bus Station has 3 major shareholders: Saigon Mechanical Transport Construction Corporation with a 51% ownership, followed by America LLC with a 23.08% ownership, and Thai Binh Investment Joint Stock Company with a 10% ownership.
The sharp increase in the dividend rate was announced after the company announced its optimistic business results in 2023. In 2023, WCS’s net revenue reached a record of over VND 140 billion, a 49% increase compared to the previous year and exceeding the revenue target of VND 120 billion (17%). Net profit surged 73% to nearly VND 67 billion – the highest profit of the company in the past 4 years, since 2020, and exceeded the profit target for the year by nearly 50% (VND 45 billion).
According to the explanation of the management board, the revenue improved thanks to the ban on sleeper buses in the inner city area since the beginning of the year, which led transportation companies to bring their buses to the station. The company implemented charging fees for the service of entering and leaving the station according to the approved route schedule.
The Western Bus Station is one of the largest bus stations in Ho Chi Minh City, with an area of over 4.7 hectares, built and put into operation in 1973. After 1975, it was taken over by the State and continued to operate under the management of the Ho Chi Minh City Department of Transportation. In 2006, the Western Bus Station officially operated as a joint stock company, and in 2020, its shares were listed on the Hanoi Stock Exchange (HNX).
