THE board of directors of Manila Water Co., Inc. (MWCI) approved on Thursday an increase in the company’s dividend payout ratio to 30 percent from only 25 percent in previous years.

With the new dividend policy, dividend per share for 2007 will increase to P0.30 per common share for the whole year from P0.21 in 2006. This translates to around three percent in annual dividend yield at the current share price.

“MWCI’s continuous improvements in operating efficiencies translate to solid financial performance, which in turn allows us to provide healthy returns to our shareholders and to continue with our major investments for service improvements and expansion,” said its president Antonino T. Aquino.

A listed company at the Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE), MWCI declares cash  dividends twice a year—March and September. The company’s board approved the initial cash dividend amounting to P0.15 per share, payable on March 22, 2007 for shareholders on record as of March 1, 2007.

MWCI earlier reported a 19-percent growth in net income for 2006 to P2.39 billion versus P2.01 billion the previous year. Revenues also increased to P6.48 billion, up 17 percent from 2005’s P5.54 billion.

“The improved level of net income was a result of our P4.8-billion capital investments in 2006. We expect to continue the same level of investment in the coming years. As a matter of fact, this year, we have earmarked more than P4 billion for projects that would allow us to sustain operating efficiencies, ensure the reliability of the system and continue our network expansion to the farthest parts of our concession area,” said Aquino.

He also emphasized that nonrevenue water, or systems losses, dropped to its historic low of 30 percent as of end 2006, a five percentage-point cut from the previous year’s level. MWCI attributed the reduction to the effective management of its water supply, coupled with massive pipe and meter replacement projects.

MWCI is the operator of the east zone water concession.

Next month, the company is set to submit a new rate rebasing plan with the regulatory office to detail its proposed investments in the service area over the next five years.

A rate rebasing plan is a full investment proposal that MWCI submits to the regulator every five years as part of the concession agreement. This indicates MWCI’s strategies to develop new water sources, the costs that go with the development and the projected revenues the company stands to earn overtime.

MWCI chief financial officer Sheridan Neuse said the plan would be turned over next month to Mass for evaluation. Its implementation would be carried out in January 2008 and would last up to 2012.

Since it won in the privatization of the east zone in 1997, MWCI has been spending over P4 billion to expand and develop its service areas.

SMART Communications Inc., the biggest mobile-phone company in the Philippines, raised P5 billion through its fixed-rate corporate note issue with five- and 10-year tenors to fund its network expansion.

PHILIPPINE stocks rose to the highest in more than a decade after the country’s investment rating was raised by advisers to the California Public Employees Retirement System (Calpers), the largest US pension fund.

THE board of directors of Manila Water Co., Inc. (MWCI) approved on Thursday an increase in the company’s dividend payout ratio to 30 percent from only 25 percent in previous years.

CONVERGYS Corp. announced Thursday it will possibly build another site in Bacolod either in the last quarter of the year or in the first quarter of 2008 as part of its expansion in the Philippines.

Although they have the biggest stake in Al-Almanah Bank, the country’s only bank that practices the Muslim’s sharia law of not charging interest for loans extended, Development Bank of the Philippines and Social Security System have only one representative each in the board.