Metropolitan Life has crossed the 5% ownership threshold in Transport Trade Services

The private pension fund Metropolitan Life exceeded, at the beginning of last week, the holding threshold of 5% of the capital of the river transporter and the port operator Transport Trade Services (TTS), according to a company report published on Friday on the website Bucharest Stock Exchange (BVB).

According to the document, Metropolitan Life had come to have, on January 22, 3.05 million TTS shares, equivalent to 5.09% of the river carrier.

At the end of November, four Pillar II pension funds held around 21.9% of Transport Trade Services shares, according to our calculations based on trustee reports and BSE data. Thus, the NN Pensii fund had almost 7.6% of TTS, the Vital fund managed by Carpathia Pensii held 6.7%, Metropolitan Life had 4.9%, while the mandatory pension fund managed by BCR held 2.7% of the capital of the river carrier and the port operator.

Pension fund administrators have repeatedly pointed out that the offer of shares from the Bucharest Stock Exchange is too low for the amounts that accumulate in the accounts of future retirees, so they are forced to turn more and more to shares foreign.

Transport Trade Services benefits from the reconfiguration of logistics chains at the regional level, in the context of the war in Ukraine. For 2023, a large increase in profitability is taking shape, given that in the first nine months the result was 84% above that of the same period of 2022.

Last year, the company's shares had a strong growth of 135.6%, and including dividends, the total gross return amounts to 140.4%.

For this year, brokers expect Transport Trade Services to pay dividends, with the average estimate equaling a gross yield of 4.3%, compared to the TTS share price on January 25, of 28.8 lei. In more detail, Prime Transaction estimates a dividend of 1.47 lei, equivalent to a yield of 5.1%, Goldring a dividend of 1.013 lei, with a yield of 3.51%, and Tradeville expects a dividend of 1.245 lei, with a yield of 4.32%.

The largest shareholder of Transport Trade Services is Mircea Mihăilescu, who owns 25.3% of the company whose stock market valuation amounts to approximately 1.7 billion lei.