COG announces maiden dividend

Consolidated Operations Group’s twin lines of business are decidedly unsexy. But Australia’s leading asset broking and aggregation group last week managed to accomplish what has so far eluded many high-flying tech companies and buy-now-pay-later platforms – declare its first payout to shareholders.

Consolidated Operations Group (ASX: COG) announced on Thursday it had overcome the challenges of a global pandemic to pay out a maiden, fully franked dividend of 0.152 cents per share on October 23.

Reporting strong results amid the coronavirus crisis, the Company raised its full-year NPATA by 6% to $8.4 million. Its revenue was up 2% to $222.2 million

“These results are very pleasing,” said CEO, Andrew Bennett.

“COG’s businesses have proven to be remarkably resilient and robust, particularly over the last COVID-19 impacted quarter of the financial year.

“We see continued growth over the near future as federal and state governments increase infrastructure spending to further stimulate the economy.”

Consolidated Operations Group has two lines of business – finance broking and aggregation, and equipment finance.

Operating under eight different brands, COG finances $4.5 billion in equipment annually – helping small and medium enterprises afford everything from tractors to laboratory equipment.

COG says it has entered into an agreement to take a controlling share in Westlawn Finance on September 1, raising its stake from a 32% interest acquired in October 2018, and plans to “opportunistically acquire” other asset finance brokers in future.

A newly integrated IT lending system is also set to go live in the first half of FY21, which will allow the company to significantly enhance its product offering, including a new chattel mortgage product.