No divi
HGH Ltd Results for the 6 months ended 1 February 2020
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HLG paid a divvy throughout the GFC. Directors obviously think this is worse.
Shareholders of all sorts of companies on the NZX are going to have to get used to the fact that the primary fiduciary duty of the directors is the long run survival of the company. They are duty bound to make this their #1 priority. "Out of an abundance of caution", (get used to that sort of thinking by directors) dividend cancellations are going to be really widespread on the NZX in 2020.
I would've thought that any company would be insane if they were paying dividends out now. Not necessarily because this is worse than the GFC, but because they have no idea when they can open again. How do you even compare a shock that played out over 2 years with one that has played out over 2 weeks?
Four weeks of the current lockdown is also the best case situation, and that's only NZ. In Australia, who knows what's going to happen over the next few weeks.
Paying out $12 million to shareholders right now would be reckless. And if they have got money to spare, they can always just pay it out later. I reckon that the only companies paying any sort of dividend are going to be the utilities.
Was someone on here telling us it was all good because one is holding for the dividend (so share price doesn't matter) or something like that? And a bit of a worry NPAT was already going backwards (prior to things turning even worse - mainly, the NZD going down further against the USD and not being able to do business for at least 4 weeks, probably longer)... no worries, being in business over 100 years is certainly a nice story, and hopefully that story continues.
A big concern for me is Glassons Australia is now 1/3 of the business and where a significant amount of growth has come from. I see Australian retail as high risk right now and I see them taking a big hit there over the next year with less government support than what they'll get in NZ
As a shareholder I would have been quite concerned if they did pay a dividend. Not much news here, decent sales in first 7 weeks despite some people at that point probably avoiding malls.
For this year or for lockdown period?