“A Coal Company’s Cash Dividend Payout: Rewarding Investors with a 400% Windfall”

397 Joint Stock Company (Stock Code: BCB) announces the record date for the 2024 cash dividend.

Accordingly, the record date is May 30, with expected payment on June 20, 2025. The company will pay dividends in cash at a rate of 28.10%/share, equivalent to VND 2,810 per share. 

BCB maintains a share price of only VND 700/share. Thus, the cash dividend yield on this share price is over 400%.

With 5.7 million shares currently in circulation, 397 Joint Stock Company is estimated to spend approximately VND 16 billion on dividend payments to shareholders.

More than half of this amount, approximately VND 8.16 billion, will go to its parent company, Dong Bac Corporation, which is under the Ministry of Defense and holds a 51% stake. 

In addition to the parent company, 397 Joint Stock Company has two other major shareholders: Quang Thanh Construction Company Limited (holding 20%) and Tho Huan Construction, Trading and Services Joint Stock Company (holding 11.46%). They will respectively receive VND 3.2 billion and VND 1.8 billion in this dividend payout.

Since its listing on the UPCoM in 2018, the annual dividend rate has consistently been in the double digits (ranging from 16-37%), while the share price has been “cheaper than iced tea”. Along with a concentrated shareholder structure, these factors have kept BCB in a constant state of sell-side pressure in the market. 

It is known that 397 Joint Stock Company was formerly the First Coal Mining Team, established in June 1996 under the Dong Bac Corporation of the Ministry of Defense, and transformed into a joint-stock company in December 2017.

Its main business is the mining and collection of hard coal, mainly in the Nam Trang Bach mine, with an area of 187.31 hectares and reserves of 4.8 million tons. The company is also engaged in wholesale fuel sales, pipeline cargo transportation, equipment repair, etc. 

From 2021 to the present, the company has consistently achieved revenue of over VND 1,000 billion, but profits have hovered around VND 20 billion. 

In 2024, the company’s revenue reached over VND 1,070 billion, a decrease of 30%, but its after-tax profit remained almost unchanged from the previous year at approximately VND 20 billion, exceeding the set plan.

This is the fourth consecutive year that the company has maintained revenue above VND 1,000 billion. 

For the 2025 plan, BCB expects to achieve revenue of VND 912 billion, a decrease of 14.7% compared to the 2024 performance. However, the expected pre-tax profit is VND 25 billion, an increase of 25% compared to the 2024 performance.