Riyadh – Mubasher: National Commercial Bank (NBC) on Wednesday announced that its shareholders had approved a cash dividend distribution of SAR 0.60 per share for the second half of 2017 during an extraordinary general assembly held the previous day.

The assembly also agreed upon increasing the bank’s capital by 50% to SAR 30 billion instead of SAR 20 billion through offering bonus shares, according to the bank’s filing to the Saudi Stock Exchange (Tadawul).

The capital hike aims at expanding the bank's activities over the coming years and strengthening its capital base, the kingdom's largest lender noted. 

The general assembly also approved the purchase of the bank’s shares, with a maximum of four million shares, to be allocated to the long-term incentive programme for executive officers, the statement showed.

For the full-year 2017, NCB’s profits rose 5.21% to SAR 9.8 billion, compared to SAR 9.3 billion in the year before.