VIENNA (Reuters) - Austrian insurer Uniqa (VI:UNIQ) plans to pay just a third of its proposed dividend for 2019 and has scrapped its payout for this year, warning on Tuesday it might make a pretax loss in 2020 because of the coronavirus pandemic.
The company said in February it expected to improve on last year's pretax profit of 295.7 million euros ($324.1 million). It also proposed paying a dividend of 54 euro cents a share.
"Due to the high uncertainty regarding the overall economic and financial impact of COVID-19 in the further course of the year, Uniqa cannot maintain the forecast for the business year 2020," the company said in a statement, referring to the illness caused by the new coronavirus.
"Uniqa ... expects a possibly negative result before taxes for the full year 2020," it said, adding the pandemic's effect on capital markets in the first quarter would hurt its investment results.
In the first three months of this year, the company expects "negative earnings before taxes in the low double-digit million euro range", it said.
While it decided to slash its proposed dividend for last year by two-thirds to 18 euro cents, it abandoned the idea of a payout for 2020 altogether.
"Uniqa plans not to distribute a dividend for the 2020 financial year. The bonus payments for the executive board for the 2020 financial year are cancelled," it said.
