Kenya Reinsurance (Kenya Re) Corporation shareholders have approved a record Sh0.30 per share dividend amounting to Sh839.9 million.
The State reinsurer raised the dividend by 50 percent from Sh0.2 per share paid for the financial year ended 2022 on the back of the increased profits. Shareholders also approved a bonus share issue that will see them bag one share for each held, translating to an overall Sh6.69 billion.
Kenya Re posted a 44.6 percent growth in profit after tax of Sh4.9 billion in the year ended December 2023 from Sh3.5 billion in the year before.
In the review period, investment income grew from Sh4.6 billion to Sh6.5 billion attributed to a rise in interest revenue calculated using the effective interest method which rose from Sh2.9 billion to Sh3.6 billion.
The net investment and insurance result saw a growth of 42 percent from Sh5.78 billion in 2022 to Sh8.19 billion posted last year.
Profit before tax for the year 2023 stood at Sh7.03 billion, an increase of 53 percent from profit before tax of Sh4.59 billion in 2022.
Kenya Re said the decline in insurance revenue was because it had been closing its Indian agricultural business because of flood losses.
"The corporation's deliberate move to scale down on loss-making classes of business eg agriculture business from India and medical classes of business,” said Kenya Re.
Last year Kenya Re told the Business Daily, that it was planning to vacate the Indian market over rising losses stemming from the agriculture underwriting business.
“We are doing a strategic withdrawal from the Indian market where we suffered heavy losses in the agriculture business and if you look at our half-year performance, you will notice we have taken a cut in premiums because we have forgone Sh2 billion premiums from the Indian market,” said Hillary Maina Wachinga, Kenya Re’s Group managing director.
Insurance companies operating in India have suffered losses from the bad weather in the region including tropical cyclones experienced in parts of India.
The company's shareholders approved the receipt of bonus shares and the listing of additional shares on the Nairobi Securities Exchange.
