Board of Tunisian insurer Star Assurances met on March 22, 2016 and offered to share a dividend of 9.20 dinar per share against 3.4 dinar in 2014, thus hiking 171%. The new dividend could be issued by paying 40% of 2015’s results, excluding exceptional disposal of share, and bonus of 25% on this transaction’s plus-value.

2015 was a good year for Star Assurances. The company had its accepted and issued premium grow by 6% to 305.54 million dinar from 288.208 million a year before. Automobile insurance increased by 11.6% to 173.38 million dinar. In parallel to incoming premium, the firm’s financial products rose 13.47% to 45.7 million dinar.

With an exceptional plus-value of 54.17 million dinars upon partial disposal of shares, the insurer had a net result of 73.45 million dinar. A 229% increase compared to the previous year. However, without this exceptional result, Star would have ended 2015 with a net result of 19.27 million dinar, its second consecutive drop, following 2014’s 13% fall.

As a result, investors react positively to the share.

Indeed, the Star share closed March 22, 2016 at +2.4% on the bourse of Tunis where it is listed while exhibiting a stock market capital gain of 12.1%, since January 2016. A result that is most welcomed by Groupama, Star’s reference shareholder (35%) behind Tunisian government (38.5%).

Idriss Linge