Profit up 92% spawns $817m SVL dividends

Supreme Ventures (SVL) will be making a surprise dividend payment to its shareholders in March and May. The company just announced a final ordinary dividend for the year ended December 2014 of 8 cents per share payable on March 21, 2015 to shareholders on record as at March 6. SVL also declared a special dividend of 23 cents per share to shareholders on record as at March 6, with 19 cents per share to be paid on March 21 and 4 cents per share payable on May 27, 2015. The stock will traded ex-dividend on March 4. The ex-dividend date for both dividends is March 4.
SVL paid dividends of 3 cents per share on January 8, last year as well as 3 cents in March, 9 cents in May, another 3 in September and 5 cents per stock on December 9, last year. The final regular dividend for 2014 brings the total relating to the 2014 profit to 19 cents per share or 54 percent of profits for the year. The total dividend payment just approved by the company totals 31 cents per share and is just short of the total profit for 2014 of 35.2 cents per share.
The company just reported full year results showing profit after tax rising by 93 percent to $930 million from revenues that climbed by 21 percent to $41.3 billion. The profit provided a decent return on equity of 24.2 percent. Earnings per share ended at 35 cents. The December quarter was a very good one for the company with revenues of $11.3 billion and profit after tax of $313 million more than half of the $617 million generated to September.
The company enjoyed cost reduction in several line items with professional fees being slashed the most falling $81 million to $239 million. Overall operating cost fell from $2.77 billion to $2.65 billion in 2014.
Credible as the gains in profit is for 2014, Management has lots more work ahead in cutting losses in sports betting amounting $194 million up from $130 million in 2013 and Gaming lounges losses of $461 million versus $556 million in 2013. For the December quarter gaming losses amounted to $85 million compared to an average of $126 million in the previous three quarters and sports betting contributed $46 million in losses for the final 2014 quarter. Without the losses in these two areas profit would have been much larger. IC Insider is forecasting profits for 2015 to be in the order of 45 cents per share.
At the end of the year the company had cash funds of $2.22 billion and the dividends amounts to $817 million will consume some of the cash on hand by time the payments are made later this month and in May.