Top Glove dividend forecast falls 33% in Bloomberg model.
The estimate for Top Glove Corp Bhd's dividend payments over the next year has fallen 33% to 7.6 sen per share, from the previous estimate of 11.4 sen per share, according to Bloomberg dividend forecasts.
The glove maker's last declared quarterly dividend was 1.2 sen. The previous yield forecast was 11.4%.
Top Glove will pay an average 1.15% yield in the next 12 months
Forecasts show that the company's peers will pay an average 1.15% yield in the next 12 months.
The Malaysian Rubber Glove Manufacturers Association (Margma) estimated that the Malaysian glove industry suffered losses of about RM1.8 billion from 2020 to 2022 as a result of the US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) sanctions on six glove companies.
Margma president Dr Supramaniam Shanmugam also said the CBP’s import ban for the four glove industry players, namely YTY Group, Smart Glove, Brightway Group and Supermax Corp Bhd, will be lifted “very soon”.
Margma: CBP sanctions cost glove companies RM1.8 bil
“The RM1.8 billion is a very conservative number,” Shanmugam said in a press conference on Monday (Aug 8) after the Malaysian Rubber Council (MRC) launched its new guide for employers to tackle forced labour in the rubber industry in Malaysia.
“By the six companies [sanctioned] in different times put together based on exports by America, we computed, this is the amount between 2020 to 2022. It is very small as we made RM55 billion in 2021 alone at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic.
“But did it hurt us? Yes, of course financially, because we are taking money out from the bottomline to sort it out,” Shanmugam said.
Malaysian Rubber Glove Manufacturers Association (Margma) will be meeting the US authorities
As for remediation payouts made by industry players to their affected employees between 2020 to 2022, Shanmugam said it “easily breached RM350 to RM400 million”.
“Almost all companies in different levels [have paid], some smaller companies paid quietly and dismissed. We got 75 members (in our association), we are getting all of them to make sure this is done … I do not have the numbers with me on who has done it, but I know many did,” he said.
Shanmugam also highlighted that Margma will be meeting the US authorities in Washington DC in January 2023 for further discussions.
He said the association is also going to make social compliance, and environmental, social and governance (ESG) the industry’s unique selling proposition going forward.
