Ac­cord­ing to the West In­dies Stock­bro­kers Ltd (WISE), the fol­low­ing are the top ten div­i­dend stocks on the T&T Stock Ex­change as at March 31.

About these com­pa­nies: One Caribbean Me­dia Ltd (OCM)

The One Caribbean Me­dia Group has pro­duced a prof­it be­fore tax and good­will im­pair­ment of $95.5 mil­lion for its fi­nan­cial year end­ed De­cem­ber 31, 2011. This was 3.5 per cent high­er than $92.2 mil­lion (US$14.4 mil­lion) be­fore-tax prof­it achieved in 2010, said OCM chair­man Sir Fred Gol­lop QC. "The OCM Group of Com­pa­nies pro­duced sat­is­fac­to­ry op­er­at­ing re­sults in 2011 in spite of ad­verse eco­nom­ic con­trac­tions in our mar­kets," he said.

As a re­sult of "on­go­ing macro-eco­nom­ic chal­lenges", rev­enues across the group de­creased by five per cent from $474 mil­lion in 2010 to $451 mil­lion in 2011, Sir Fred added. "The group con­tin­ues to fo­cus on its op­er­a­tional ef­fi­cien­cy and was able to im­prove its net prof­it mar­gin be­fore good­will im­pair­ment from 19 per cent to 21 per cent," he said. OCM di­rec­tors have ap­proved a fi­nal div­i­dend of 43 cents per share, re­sult­ing in a to­tal of 68 cents for the year. This is an in­crease of sev­en cents on 2010.

West In­di­an To­bac­co Com­pa­ny Ltd (Wit­co)

In 2011, cig­a­rette-mak­er West In­di­an To­bac­co Com­pa­ny Ltd de­clared an af­ter-tax prof­it of $290.2 mil­lion.

re­flect­ing an in­crease of 8.4 per cent over the com­pa­ny's 2010 prof­it. The com­pa­ny paid $111.8 mil­lion in tax­es and $243.3 mil­lion in ex­cise du­ties. Wit­co's to­tal prof­it be­fore tax­a­tion for the year 2011 was $402.0 mil­lion, an in­crease of 8.1 per cent over the cor­re­spond­ing pe­ri­od in 2010. Its gross turnover topped $1 bil­lion, which was 6.8 per cent more than in 2010. The di­rec­tors of the com­pa­ny rec­om­mend­ed to share­hold­ers for ap­proval a fi­nal div­i­dend of $0.98 per share at the an­nu­al meet­ing on March 29. When added to the in­ter­im div­i­dend of $2.20, this will re­sult in a to­tal div­i­dend of $3.18 per share for 2011. This rep­re­sent an in­crease of 12 per cent over the div­i­dend paid in 2010.

Cli­co, the fi­nan­cial­ly trou­bled in­sur­ance com­pa­ny, was re­port­ed to be the fifth largest Wit­co share­hold­er in the com­pa­ny's 2010 an­nu­al re­port, with a hold­ing of 4.5 mil­lion shares.

Sco­tia­bank In­vest­ments

Ja­maica Ltd (SI­JL)

First quar­ter 2012 high­lights

Net in­come of J$499 mil­lion

Earn­ings per share of J$1.18

Re­turn on av­er­age eq­ui­ty of 19.09 per cent

Pro­duc­tiv­i­ty ra­tio of 33.70 per cent

First quar­ter div­i­dend of 43.0 cents per share

Sco­tia In­vest­ments Ja­maica re­port­ed its unau­dit­ed fi­nan­cial re­sults for the three months end­ed Jan­u­ary 31, 2012. Net in­come for the pe­ri­od amount­ed to J$499 mil­lion rep­re­sent­ing a sev­en per cent in­crease over the J$466 mil­lion earned for the same pe­ri­od last year. Earn­ings per share for the quar­ter was J$1.18 com­pared to J$1.10 for the first three months last year. The com­pa­ny's re­turn on av­er­age eq­ui­ty stood at 19.09 per cent at the end of the quar­ter, and was down mar­gin­al­ly from 20.73 per cent last year.

Na­tion­al Com­mer­cial Bank Ja­maica Ltd (NCBJ)

The Na­tion­al Com­mer­cial Bank Ja­maica Ltd, (NCB) copped the Latin Fi­nance award for Best Bank in Ja­maica for 2011. This was the third ssuch award from Latin Fi­nance, the lead­ing source of ex­clu­sive mar­ket in­tel­li­gence on Latin Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean. n Net prof­it in­creased by 17.69per cent year-on-year or $1,959 mil­lion to close the year at $13,034 mil­lion

Re­turn on eq­ui­ty de­clined by 4 per cent year-on-year down from 24.66 per cent in 2010 to 23.71 per cent in 2011

Cost to in­come in­creased by 1.75 per cent year-on-year to close the year at 52.4 per cent

Re­turn on as­sets in­creased by 10.26 per cent year-on-year to close the year at 3.76 per cent

Div­i­dend paid de­clined by 28 per cent year-on-year down from J$1.90 in 2010 to J$1.36 in 2011

Share­hold­ers re­turn in­creased by 30 per cent year-on-year, up from 49 per cent in 2010 to 64 per cent in 2011.

Fla­vorite Foods Ltd

In Jan­u­ary, Fla­vorite an­nounced its ac­qui­si­tion of the shares of Romike Ltd, lo­cat­ed at the cor­ner of Bound­ary Road and Churchill Roo­sevelt High­way, San Juan. Romike is a suc­cess­ful frozen meat, chilled and dry goods dis­tri­b­u­tion com­pa­ny with an­nu­al sales in ex­cess of $50 mil­lion for the last fi­nan­cial year end­ing March 31, 2011. This ac­qui­si­tion will ben­e­fit the en­larged group due to the many syn­er­gies avail­able fol­low­ing the merg­er.

Re­pub­lic Bank Ltd

Re­pub­lic Bank Ltd, and own­er of the Bar­ba­dos Na­tion­al Bank, is re­port­ing im­proved re­sults for the fi­nan­cial year to Sep­tem­ber 30, 2011. Re­cent re­sults pub­lished in the press show Re­pub­lic Bank Group record­ing record prof­it at­trib­ut­able to share­hold­ers of US$177.7 mil­lion, a 12.8 per cent in­crease over last year's per­for­mance. Chair­man Ronald Har­ford said the Group's as­sets now stand at US$7.5 bil­lion, re­flect­ing an in­crease of three per cent over 2010. For the year in re­view, Re­pub­lic re­port­ed a di­lut­ed earn­ings per share of US$1.11, com­pared to US$0.98 a year ago. In ad­di­tion, re­turn on av­er­age as­sets was 2.51 per cent up from 2.43 per cent last year and div­i­dends per share of US$0.64 com­pared to US$0.56 in 2010. The board de­clared a fi­nal div­i­dend of US$0.44 com­pared to US$0.38 a year ear­li­er. The Group's net in­ter­est and oth­er in­come to­tal US$526.1 mil­lion, com­pared to US$480.1 mil­lion, ac­cord­ing to the re­sults.

Na­tion­al En­ter­pris­es Ltd (NEL)

Na­tion­al En­ter­pris­es Ltd re­port­ed unau­dit­ed con­sol­i­dat­ed earn­ings re­sults for the nine months end­ed De­cem­ber 31, 2011. For the year, the com­pa­ny's rev­enue was $323,667,000 against $324,006,000 a year ago. Op­er­at­ing loss was $3,465,000 against op­er­at­ing prof­it of $26,042,000 a year ago. Be­fore-tax prof­it was $393,858,000 against $417,383,000 a year ago. Prof­it at­trib­ut­able to eq­ui­ty share­hold­ers was $397,578,000 or $0.66 per ba­sic share against $406,534,000 or $0.68 per ba­sic share a year ago. Net cash flows from op­er­at­ing ac­tiv­i­ties were $37,923,000 against $57,698,000 a year ago.

Unilever Caribbean Ltd

An­nounce­ment of unau­dit­ed re­sults for nine months end­ed Sep­tem­ber 30, 2011. Chair­man Gary Voss's re­view: "I am pleased to re­port an im­proved over­all per­for­mance in the third quar­ter of 2011 with sales in­creas­ing by 12.5 per cent over the same pe­ri­od last year, bring­ing year-to-date sales up to 5.3 per cent more than 2010. "Our gross mar­gins con­tin­ue to be chal­lenged by ris­ing in­put costs, the in­dus­tri­al re­la­tions cli­mate and com­pet­i­tive pres­sures in the pre­vail­ing tight mar­ket con­di­tions. In spite of this, we were able to grow our year-to-date af­ter-tax prof­it for the year by 9.8 per cent over last year, as a re­sult of tight con­trol of all ar­eas of ex­pen­di­ture."

Guardian Hold­ings Ltd (GHL)

High­lights of chair­man Arthur Lok Jack re­port for the year end­ed De­cem­ber 31, 2011:

GHL pro­duced a net af­ter tax prof­it from con­tin­u­ing op­er­a­tions of $465 mil­lion

Third quar­ter of 2011, GHL sold its Unit­ed Kingom Lloyd's of Lon­don man­ag­ing agency, Ju­bilee, and re­alised a gain of $74 mil­lion

Ju­bilee's un­der­writ­ing loss­es amount­ed to $67 mil­lion

Over the next three months, Ju­bilee's loss­es grew to $210 mil­lion "from un­prece­dent­ed cat­a­stro­phe loss­es

GHL's net prof­it af­ter tax at­trib­ut­able to share­hold­ers was $261 mil­lion or earn­ings per share of $1.13

Its 2010 EPS was $406 mil­lion or $1.94

In­ter­im div­i­dend is 15 cents

First­Caribbean In­ter­na­tion­al Bank Ltd (FCIB)

Ac­cord­ing to chair­man Michael Man­soor: "Net in­come for the fi­nan­cial year end­ed Oc­to­ber 31, 2011, amount­ed to $74 mil­lion or 4.6 cents per share com­pared with $157 mil­lion or 10.1 cents per share in the pri­or year.

Ex­clud­ing se­cu­ri­ties gains, the year-on-year de­cline of $49 mil­lion was pri­mar­i­ly dri­ven by high­er op­er­at­ing and loan loss ex­pens­es and de­clines in net in­ter­est in­come.

The di­rec­tors ap­proved the pay­ment of a fi­nal div­i­dend of one point five cents ($0.015) per share."

(Note: Prices quot­ed in this ar­ti­cle were valid as at the third week in March 2012)