4% to members, SPOL & Telekom top contributors to SINPF dividends

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The Solomon Islands National Provident Fund (SINPF) in declaring the 4% credit rating to its members for the past financial year with South Pacific Oil and Solomon Telekom as biggest contributors to the $114m in dividends.

Chief Executive Officer Michael Wate in his statement said: “We had received dividends worth more than $114 million.”

Key Drivers of our 2024 Financial Performance 

He further detailed that the key performers are as follow; South Pacific Oil Limited ($60,000,000), Solomon Telekom Company Limited ($42,821,028), BSP Financial Group Ltd ($8,352143), UBS Australian Share Fund ($2,210,399) and Solomon Islands Submarine Cable Company Ltd ($842,648).

Wate explained that this is a reduction on the previous 2023 financial year level of $ 123,181,180 and mainly due to movement in foreign exchange rates and changes to one of our key equity investment company dividend policy.

 “Our interest income from Solomon Islands Government short and long term debts surged by more than 47% on 2023 level of $17,551,384 to reach $25,788,584 in 2024. As an investment asset class Solomon Islands Government debt papers has increasingly contributed strongly to the Fund’s income in recent years,” he said.

 He further stated that interest income from NPF’s shareholder loans to its national investee companies Solomon Telekom Ltd ($4,111,9556), Heritage Park Hotel Ltd ($2,678,621), Soltuna Ltd ($997,846), Solomon Finance Ltd ($277,007), and SI Submarine Cable Company Ltd ($316,895) have also contributed strongly to the Fund’s 2024 income performance.

The Fund’s recent 2023 loan to the national carrier Solomon Airlines Ltd has started repayments contributing strongly to the fund’s 2024 income with an interest income of $1,251,315.

“Our property rental income was basically flat in 2024 at the same level of around $34 million received from tenants leasing our investment properties.  Our 2 key property asset earners are the ASB ($14,169,510) and the executive apartments ($8,939,880),” the CEO, stated.

Formal Membership

  According to Wate, a total of 6,644 new formal members were registered during the year, up from the previous year’s level of 5,881.

This is an increase of just under 13% on 2023 new formal membership.

“As our economy recovers and continue to grow we expect new employment to continue to expand,” Wate said.

  He said contributions received from employers and formal members increased to $381,990,181 in 2024, up from $378,748,981 recorded in 2023 for an increase of just under 1%.

  The Fund’s total formal membership with credit balances increased to 152,047, from 147,222 in 2023 for a total contribution value of $3,735,008,416 up from last year’s level of $3,504,085,490.

   Active contributing members increased to 59,871 up by 5.8% on 2023 level of 56,606 members with a total contribution balance of $3,075,853,939.