SARAJEVO, June 25 (Reuters) - Bosnia's largest power utility, Elektroprivreda BiH (EPBiH) said on Thursday it would pay a 0.76 Bosnian marka ($0.55) per share dividend for the full-year 2008, its first payout to shareholders.
It said 90 percent of the 23.1 million marka dividend will be given to the Muslim-Croat federation government, its majority stakeholder. The remaining 22 million marka of last year's profit would be invested into various projects and a reserve fund, EPBiH said in a statement.
The company's shares listed at the Sarajevo Stock Echange traded at 27.5 marka on Thursday, the same level as Wednesday.
The firm plans to increase its 2009 revenues by 12.7 percent from 890 million marka posted last year and profit to 80 million marka.
It has announced investments of close to 1.5 billion marka to overhaul existing facilities and build new hydro and thermal power plants and renewable energy resources, such as wind.
EPBiH, located in the federation, was Bosnia's only power company while it was part of the former Yugoslavia. But after the country split along ethnic lines during the 1992-95 war, separate Serb and Croat-run utilites were formed.
Bosnia is one of the few South European countries seen as capable of exporting electricity, while its neighbours rely on imports to cover between 30 and 50 percent of consumption. ($1=1.4 Bosnian marka) (Reporting by Maja Zuvela; Editing by Mariam Karouny)