07:40 AM EDT, 03/14/2025 (MT Newswires) -- Sagicor Financial ( SGCFF ) overnight Thursday reported an increase in core earnings to shareholders for the fourth quarter, citing strong contributions from its Sagicor Canada segment. The company increased its quarterly dividend.

Core basic earnings per share for the quarter increased by a third to US$0.204 compared with US$0.154, a year earlier. Core earnings to shareholders for the three months ended Dec. 31, increased to US$28.0 million compared with US$21.8 million, in the prior year.

The company also increased by 12.5% its quarterly dividend to US$0.0675 per common share to be paid during the second quarter.

Sagicor Canada's sales production was $18 million for the quarter.

"Our annualized core ROE in Q4 shows our potential for further earnings growth both in 2025 and in the medium term beyond," said Sagicor Chief Executive Andre Mousseau.

"Our increased projected core earnings, robust capitalization and liquidity, and reduced share count are all enabling us to provide our shareholders with a 12.5% increase in our quarterly dividend. At this payment level we anticipate we will be at approximately the midpoint of our 30% to 40% target core dividend payout ratio range for 2025....While economic uncertainty may cloud certain macroeconomic variables, we believe our core initiatives will enable us to continue to grow our return on shareholders' equity in 2025 and beyond," the CEO added.

Sagicor expects 2025 core basic EPS to be about US$0.740 to US$0.800 per share. The company also said new business contractual service margin is targeted at US$180 million to US$200 million for 2025.

Shares of the company closed up 2.35% to $7.41 on Thursday on the Toronto Stock Exchange.