Gen­er­al man­ag­er of ma­jor­i­ty state-owned Na­tion­al En­ter­pris­es Ltd, Charles May­nard, says he is fo­cus­ing on gen­er­at­ing div­i­dends for its share­hold­ers.

Speak­ing at the com­pa­ny’s third quar­ter in­vestors meet­ing at The BRIX in St Ann’s, May­nard in­di­cat­ed that NEL’s fo­cus re­mains on build­ing a port­fo­lio ca­pa­ble of gen­er­at­ing sus­tain­able div­i­dend in­come while al­so pro­vid­ing growth po­ten­tial.

“We see our­selves as a div­i­dend stock. Those will be the lit­mus tests any new as­set will have to pass,” he said.

NEL is fi­nal­is­ing its next three-year strate­gic plan, with the com­pa­ny look­ing to iden­ti­fy as­sets that com­bine div­i­dend in­come with growth po­ten­tial.

May­nard al­so point­ed to NEL’s debt-free bal­ance sheet as pro­vid­ing flex­i­bil­i­ty to pay div­i­dends, make in­vest­ments and pur­sue new op­por­tu­ni­ties.

“Through­out all this, our bal­ance sheet has re­mained debt-free. That liq­uid­i­ty gives us flex­i­bil­i­ty. Flex­i­bil­i­ty to pay div­i­dends, flex­i­bil­i­ty to make in­vest­ments, flex­i­bil­i­ty to look for new as­sets, flex­i­bil­i­ty to look for new op­por­tu­ni­ties,” he said.

NEL’s man­ag­er, in­vest­ments and ac­counts Veni­ta Ram­lal con­firmed that NEL’s div­i­dend pol­i­cy pro­vides for a 90 per cent pay­out of div­i­dend in­come re­ceived an­nu­al­ly, sub­ject to Board ap­proval.

Div­i­dends paid and payable for the fi­nan­cial year to date to­tal $132 mil­lion, com­pris­ing the fi­nal div­i­dend for fi­nan­cial year 2025 and an in­ter­im div­i­dend for fi­nan­cial year 2026.

Ram­lal al­so in­di­cat­ed that NEL’s book val­ue close­ly tracks the un­der­ly­ing val­ue of its as­sets.

“Our book val­ue is as good as mar­ket val­ue when you look at it from that per­spec­tive,” she said.

NEL said its shares have al­so ex­pe­ri­enced in­creased mar­ket ac­tiv­i­ty. The com­pa­ny’s share price moved from $1.72 in De­cem­ber 2025 to $4.56 in Sep­tem­ber 2026, an in­crease of about 165 per cent.

“NEL stock has moved from be­ing one of the most illiq­uid on the Trinidad and To­ba­go Stock Ex­change to be­ing one of the most high­ly trad­ed,” May­nard said.

The com­pa­ny said it now has the sec­ond-high­est trad­ing turnover on the Trinidad and To­ba­go Stock Ex­change.

NEL’s lat­est per­for­mance marks a re­ver­sal from the loss­es record­ed dur­ing the com­pa­ra­ble pe­ri­od last year, when fair-val­ue loss­es across its strate­gic port­fo­lio sig­nif­i­cant­ly af­fect­ed its re­sults.

NEL swung to a $254 mil­lion prof­it for the nine months end­ed June 30, re­vers­ing a $185 mil­lion loss in the cor­re­spond­ing pe­ri­od last year.

The com­pa­ny said the turn­around was dri­ven pri­mar­i­ly by a $199 mil­lion pos­i­tive fair-val­ue move­ment across its strate­gic port­fo­lio, com­pared with a $238 mil­lion fair-val­ue loss in the same pe­ri­od last year. That rep­re­sents a year-on-year swing of about $437 mil­lion.

Div­i­dend in­come in­creased 14 per cent to $55.6 mil­lion, while op­er­at­ing prof­it re­mained steady at $56 mil­lion. To­tal as­sets rose 12 per cent to $2.8 bil­lion, and earn­ings per share moved from a loss of 31 cents to a gain of 42 cents.

NEL’s cash and cash equiv­a­lents stood at $244 mil­lion at June 30, com­pared with $85 mil­lion a year ear­li­er.

where in­sti­tu­tion­al in­vestors, bro­kers, as­set man­agers and rep­re­sen­ta­tives from the Min­istry of Fi­nance’s In­vest­ment Di­vi­sion at­tend­ed.

“We have had a pret­ty de­cent year so far. We have re­bound­ed from the pe­ri­ods of the pre­vi­ous years where we had un­re­alised fair val­ue loss­es.”

The com­pa­ny’s largest share­hold­ers are the Gov­ern­ment of T&T (via Cor­po­ra­tion Sole) with 66.05 per cent and Na­tion­al Gas Com­pa­ny with 16.67 per cent.