YEREVAN, June 27. / ARKA /. Armenian Araratbank has earmarked 297 million drams of its last year’s 3.082 billion drams worth net profit to pay as dividends to its shareholders, the bank’s CEO, Ashot Osipyan, said today at the bank’s shareholders’ annual meeting.

He said the payment will start from July 15. According to Osipyan, the amount makes 9.6% of the net profit or 4.65% of the nominal value of its shares.

He said also that the book value of a bank's share in 2013 increased by 19.3% to 15,368 drams, up from its face value of 5,000 drams. Osipyan said per share profit in 2013 amounted to 2,413 drams.
Araratbank was established in 1991.

The main shareholder of the bank is Barsegh Beglaryan, the owner of Flash oil trader (75 percent), the rest is owned by the EBRD. The bank joined NASDAQ OMX Armenia stock exchange in 2009.

As of April 1 Araratbank’s assets totaled about 131.8 billion drams having increased by 5.23% from the beginning of the year; its liabilities stood at 111.2 billion drams (up 5.31%), the capital was worth 20.5 billion drams (an increase of 4.8%), credit investments stood at 61.4 billion drams (up 3.13%) and liabilities to clients totaled 71.2 billion drams (up 3.97%). Profit for the first quarter amounted to 1.1 billion drams (up 51.4%). ($ 1 - 408.12 drams). -0 -