I don't understand why they paid the dividends To understand...

I don't understand why they paid the dividends

To understand that, you have to go back a few years. To keep faith with shareholders the company had cast in stone a policy of starting to pay dividends as soon as possible. The first dividend was to just that, to reward loyal shareholders as had been promised. It was much earlier than analysts had predicted. They had not studied the policy that had been repeated over and over long before dividends were possible. They also said long ago, that the payout ratio would increase gradually to around 40%. That was repeated in Nev Power's interview yesterday. He also said that in the event of any shortfall, the dividend would be the first to be sacrificed.

So, there is no way the dividends would be stopped unless there was no alternative. But yesterday's interview gave no indication of any anticipated problems in the next two years at least. Most of the analysts need to take a chill pill, and calm down.