On the same day, the People's Insurance and China Life Insurance announced that they plan to implement mid-term dividends in 2024; China Life Insurance disclosed that the relevant proposals have been approved by the board of directors. As of now, New China Life Insurance, People's Insurance, China Life Insurance, and Ping An Insurance have all planned or already implemented "dividend multiple times a year", and only China Pacific Insurance has yet to make a statement in A-share's five major insurance enterprises.
On June 26th, both listed insurance companies announced their plans to implement interim dividends on the same day. On June 26th, China Pacific Insurance (601319.SH) and China Life Insurance (601628.SH) successively announced that the company plans to implement mid-term dividends in 2024.
China Life announced tonight that the company held its 40th board meeting on June 26, 2024 and unanimously passed the resolution regarding the relevant arrangements for the 2024 mid-term profit distribution.
According to the resolution, China Life plans to make arrangements for the distribution of mid-term profits in 2024 in accordance with relevant legal regulations and regulatory requirements. Specifically, based on the audited financial report for the first half of 2024, taking into account factors such as current performance, solvency level, and financial status, if there are conditions for distributing profits in the first half of 2024, cash dividends will be distributed to all shareholders, and the total amount of mid-term cash dividends will not exceed 30% of the net profit attributable to the shareholders of the parent company in the first half of 2024.
China Life stated in the announcement that the specific amount of mid-term profit distribution in 2024 will be determined based on the relevant arrangements, taking into account actual business results and solvency impact in the first half of 2024, and will be implemented after fulfilling the company's governance procedures in accordance with relevant laws, regulations and the company's articles of association. When formulating the annual 2024 profit distribution plan, the mid-term profit distribution amount already distributed will be taken into account.
It is worth mentioning that, earlier today, China Pacific Insurance also announced that in order to implement the State Council's "Several Opinions on Strengthening Regulation, Preventing Risks, and Promoting the High-Quality Development of the Capital Market", further enhance the stability, sustainability, and predictability of cash dividends, increase the frequency of cash dividends, enable investors to share the company's development dividends in a timely manner, and enhance their sense of acquisition, it plans to implement mid-term dividends in 2024.
China Pacific Insurance stated in its announcement that it will formulate a specific mid-term dividend plan based on the company's articles of association and the performance of the first half of 2024, comprehensively considering factors such as profit level, shareholder returns, solvency, etc., and submit it to the board of directors and shareholders' meeting for review. The content and review of the 2024 mid-term dividend plan will be subject to subsequent announcements by the company.
On April 12th of this year, the State Council issued the "Several Opinions on Strengthening Regulation, Preventing Risks, and Promoting the High-Quality Development of the Capital Market" (referred to as the new "Nine Rules of the State"), which proposed to strengthen the supervision of cash dividends of listed companies, increase the stability, sustainability, and predictability of dividends, and promote dividends more than once a year, pre-dividends, and dividends before the Spring Festival.
The reporter of the Financial Association noticed that since the release of the new "Nine Rules of the State", many listed companies have successively disclosed their implementation of the "more than once a year dividend" arrangement. On May 24th, New China Life Insurance announced that the board of directors had approved the "Proposal for the Arrangement of Mid-term Profit Distribution in 2024", becoming the first listed insurance company to follow the "more than once a year dividend" arrangement after the new "Nine Rules of the State".
According to the statistics of Eastmoney Choice, New China Life Insurance, China Pacific Insurance and China Life Insurance have successively announced plans to implement mid-term dividends, in addition to China Ping An, which has been implementing dividends twice a year. Only China Taibao has not yet made its position clear among the top five listed insurance companies in A-shares.