Family Mart to deal out dividend of N$1.5 for 2002

Taipei, March 20, 2003 (CENS)--Taiwan Family Mart Co., Ltd., the operator of the local Family Mart chain of convenience stores, will distribute a dividend per share of NT$1.5, NT$0.8 in stock and NT$0.7 in cash, for its operation last year.

Taiwan Family Mart is listed on the local over-the-counter bourse. The company's board of directors passed the dividend distribution at a meeting on March 18. The company raked in revenue of NT$21.838 billion and pretax profit of NT$468 million last year, going up by 19.63% and 86.11% respectively from 2001. The firm's earnings per share (EPS) for 2002 stood at NT$2.75.

The board of directors also consented to the company's financial projection for this year as follows: revenue of NT$24.8 billion (up 13.56% from last year), pretax profit of NT$592 million (up 26.50%), and EPS of NT$3.2 based on the capital after ex-right. Moreover, the company plans to expand its chain from 1,330 stores at present to 1,457 ones by the end of this year.

On the other hand, President Chain Store Corp., the operator of the local 7-Eleven convenience store chain listed on the Taiwan Stock Exchange, projects revenue of NT$80.0 billion, pretax profit of NT$3.50 billion, and an increase of 300 in the total number of its chain stores for this year.