Earth Corporation positions “the return of benefits to shareholders” as an important management issue, and strives to continue stable dividends while securing internal reserves to maintain continuous growth and a robust management structure.
Internal reserves are used mainly for strategic investments and M&As intended to expand the earnings base in Asia, investments in building ICT infrastructures (including backbone system innovations), investments in R&D and other activities that tie into open innovations, and capital investments aimed at increasing production efficiency. Moving forward, we will also consider the flexible acquisition of treasury shares in keeping with the status of cash flow and movement in stock prices.
To ensure stable and continuous dividends of surplus, we use dividend on equity (DOE) as an indicator, and aim for returns at a ratio of 4-5%.
To enable flexible returns of benefits to shareholders, in accordance with the provisions of Article 454, Paragraph 5, of the Companies Act, we have provided in the Articles of Incorporation that we may distribute an interim dividend by a resolution of the board of directors, with June 30 of each business year as the record date. However, given the significant difference in performance between the first and second half resulting from the high component ratio of sales for insecticides, which are seasonal products, Earth Corporation only distributes year-end dividends based on operating results for the full year.