NATIONAL Reinsurance Corp. of the Philippines said Tuesday its net income for 2007 rose 121 percent to P609 million from P275 million a year earlier.

The increase was on the back of strong profit growth in underwriting and investment operations, as well as a drop in general and administrative expenses.

Because of last year’s results, National Reinsurance will reward its shareholders 20 centavos per share in cash dividend. The payout will amount to P436 million and will come from its unrestricted retained earnings.

The cash dividend will cover stockholders on record as of April 10, 2008 and payable on or before May 6, 2008.

“We are committed to providing our stockholders with a good return by distributing as much of our income as we can in the form of cash dividends,” he said.

“The approved cash-dividend declaration is almost three times the 7-centavo cash dividend declared last year,” he added.

National Reinsurance was listed on the first board of the stock exchange on April 27. It raised P2.8 billion from its IPO.

FILINVEST Land Inc. and Megaworld Corp. paced a four-day climb among Philippine property stocks, the longest rally in more than two months, on speculation bank lending will boost home sales and office rents will rise.

Metro Pacific turns around from loss

METRO PACIFIC Investments Corp. said Tuesday it made a core net income of P194.9 million last year from a net loss of P25.4 million a year earlier.

FOUR companies that raised capital by selling shares in the market have deviated from how they said they would spend the money from the shares sale, the Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE) said Tuesday.

IP E-GAME Ventures Inc. (IP E-Games), a subsidiary of publicly traded IPVG Corp., has entered into a game-publishing and distribution deal with Korean game developer EST Soft.

VSSC Distribution Inc., an enterprise security-solutions provider, launched Tuesday the ForeScout Technologies clientless network access control (NAC) solutions in the Philippines.

NATIONAL Reinsurance Corp. of the Philippines said Tuesday its net income for 2007 rose 121 percent to P609 million from P275 million a year earlier.

Well-entrenched is the rule that by reason of the special knowledge and expertise of administrative departments over matters falling under their jurisdiction, they are in a better position to pass judgment thereon and their findings of fact in that regard are generally accorded respect, if not finality, by the courts (Palele v. Court of Appeals, 362 SCRA 141).