SHAREHOLDERS of NCB Financial Group (NCBFG) will share up just under $1.3 billion in a month’s time after their board declared a $0.50 cents per share dividend on improved earnings in the last two quarters.

The dividend is to be paid on June 10. Shareholders who are registered as owning NCB Financial Group shares on May 27 will qualify for the payout. Michael Lee-Chin, the company’s largest shareholder through his Canada-based private investment company Portland Holdings, will be taking home $620 million of the total.

NCB Financial Group declared the payment after realising $13.7 billion in profit over the six months running from October to March. It bettered the performance of the same period last year by 98 per cent. In the first six months of the prior financial year NCB Financial Group recorded $6.91 billion in profit.

“The group’s almost twofold increase in net profit over the prior year confirms our commitment and capacity to produce substantial results in the short and medium term, with our efforts focused on specific objectives,” NCB Financial Group said in notes accompanying its financial statements.

“This achievement reflects the initial results from our reorganisation and cost-optimisation efforts. Over the past six months we have delivered on the initial commitments made, which have led to a significant shift in the group’s performance and position. Our intense focus on improving customer experience, strengthening governance, and enhancing efficiency is showing early signs of success and is expected to accelerate performance improvement over the short to medium term,” it continued.

Some of the early positives NCB Financial Group is seeing due to its turnaround is reduction in its cost-to-income ratio. Lee-Chin, before he started to play a more active role in the bank last year, said one of the aims was to cut the bank’s costs to make more money available to pay dividends. At the end of March the cost-to-income ratio at NCB Financial Group was 67 per cent, down from 74 per cent in December.

“The positive movement in the cost-to-income ratio was due to increased revenues and a slower pace of growth in operating expenses, which is consistent with our strategy to realise on the operating leverage inherent in the platform to grow revenues and improve profit margins concurrently.”

Lee-Chin, in an interview with the Jamaica Observer last July, said he aims to cut costs so that it is no more than approximately 55 per cent of the group’s income.