Obviously whilst paying dividends over the years the board has...

Obviously whilst paying dividends over the years the board has been re-investing a portion of their profits into the growth of the company.......would you agree that management has been ineffective at creating capital growth from those funds??. As Mr Buffet says management have a decision to make regarding retaining funds for growth and that is "only retain funds for growth if you (ie management) can achieve a superior return for shareholders than the yield they would get from dividends"..........using this philosophy the incompetent VRL management should pay all profits out in dividends cos even the dumbest investor could have done better with the profits than turning $6 into $1 ...........which is what management have done since 1996 with VRL shares.

BWT these posts of mine are done as a community service!! :o) I have never held and would never hold VRL unless managaement were cleaned out. Apart from the fact I never buy downtrending stocks.