AIRPORTS Fiji Ltd has made an unprecedented dividend payment of $15 million to the Government, saying the payment is driven by restructuring its revenue streams.
The $15m dividend payment — $7.5m for 2014 and $7.5m for the first half of 2015 — was made by AFL executive chairman Faiz Khan to Government yesterday.
Minister for Public Enterprise, Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum, who received the payment on behalf of Government, said it was a wonderful achievement for the state owned enterprise.
He also explained the situation AFL found itself in prior to the restructure with rentals for some areas in the airport being much lower than in nearby suburbs.
“Airports generally throughout the world have the most expensive real estate as far as concessions are concerned and indeed what we saw prior to this was that the concessions were quite abysmal,” Mr Sayed-Khaiyum said.
“In fact rentals down in Namaka were a lot more expensive than it was at the airport, which is really a pathetic situation.
“So we have now provided some sort of balance if you like in respect of what needs to be paid at the airport.”
Mr Khan, gave credit to the restructured revenue streams for the improved dividend payments.
“The effect of the revenue restructure will not totally be seen until next year or the year after so the profits of Airports Fiji Ltd is expected to increase even further in the coming two years.
He also said the dividend payment was made at a time when AFL was undertaking $105m capital upgrade works at Nadi International Airport.
“The other major comment that I need to make is usually for State-owned enterprises. I’ve sat in many AGMs in the past whereby the very fact that a major capital works has been undertaken, that has been used not to declare dividends or to declare nominal amounts of dividends.”
