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Nearly 140 companies recommended stock dividends in 2017 to raise an aggregate amount of Tk 27.95 billion in the calendar year.
Of the 140 companies, 39 are scheduled to take shareholders' approval of the stock dividend offers at the annual general meetings (AGM) to be held during December 21 to December 31, 2017.
If the dividend offers of the 39 companies are approved at the AGMs, the total amount of bonus shares issued by the 140 companies will be 2.78 billion in 2017, according to information available with the Dhaka Stock Exchange (DSE).
And the amount of fund raised through bonus shares will be above Tk 27.95 billion which will be 11.44 per cent higher than the amount of fund raised through stock dividend in 2016.
A total of 126 listed companies issued 2.5 billion bonus shares and raised capital worth above Tk 25.08 billion in 2016.
Bonus shares are additional shares given to shareholders without any additional cost, based upon the number of shares that a shareholder owns. These are a company's accumulated earnings which are not given out in the form of dividends, but are converted to free shares.
The highest number of companies which recommended stock dividend in 2017 was from the insurance sector. A total of 25 insurance companies recommended bonus dividend in 2017.
Among other companies which issued bonus shares in 2017, 17 were from the banking sector, 10 from financial institutions sector, 22 from engineering sector, five from food & allied sector and five from fuel & energy sector.
Besides, one company from the jute sector recommended bonus dividend in 2017. Another 24 companies followed the suit from the textile sector, 12 companies from pharmaceuticals & chemicals sector, two from the services & real estate sector, one from cement sector, four from IT sector, two from tannery sector, three from ceramic sector and seven from the miscellaneous sector.