Shares in Bank Muscat rose on Tuesday after the bank said it will revise its dividends for 2018.

Bank Muscat announced to the exchange on Tuesday that its board of directors had revised the cash dividend for last year to 35 percent from its previously proposed level of 30 percent, and decided to distribute 5 percent as bonus shares (stock dividend).

The bank had reported  a net profit of 179.63 million Omani rials ($466.47 million) for 2018 at the end of January, compared to 176.82 million rials posted for 2017, an increase of 1.6 per cent.

Bank Muscat’s shares were trading 1.9 percent higher, at 0.428 riyals by 12:53 GST on Tuesday, and have gained 5.94 percent so far since the start of 2019.

The research team at Oman-based Ubhar Capital told Zawya by email that today’s increase in Bank Muscat’s valuation came following the decision to increase its cash dividend.

“We revise our 12-month target price (TP) for Bank Muscat (BKMB) to OMR (Omani rials) 0.470 per share from our earlier TP of OMR 0.480 per share on revision in cost of equity, but maintain its rating at accumulate (range between +10 percent and +20 percent),” Ubhar Capital’s research team said in a report published on Monday.

(Reporting by Gerard Aoun; Editing by Michael Fahy)

(gerard.aoun@refinitiv.com)

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