The Dividend on Purchase and Revolving Funds System of Fisheries Cooperatives

수협의 이용고배당과 회전출자제도

The paper examines the dividend on purchase and revolving funds system of fisheries cooperatives, and discusses how to reform the current revolving funds system. In general, there are two types of dividend that fisheries cooperatives pay to their members : (1) dividend on capital and (2) dividend on purchase or patronage dividend. During the last 5 years from 1990 to 1994, the rate of total dividend ranged from 7.5% to 8.6%. The average rate of dividend on capital and dividend on purchase are 7.3% and 0.5%, respectively. On average, the level of dividend on capital is almost 15 times as high as that of dividend on purchase. Since the dividend on purchase is supposed to be reinvested into capital by the Articles of the cooperatives, it is paid only if there are additional funds available after the payment of dividend on capital and is regarded as the secondary type of dividend. For this reason, even though most of fisheries cooperatives pay the dividend on capital, only a small number of cooperatives pay the patronage dividend. This means that most of cooperatives cannot materialize the managerial function of dividend on purchase to improve their operational efficiency under the current system of revolving funds. Therefore, the paper suggests that in the long run, the system of revolving funds should be reformed in the way that revolving funds could serve to complement equity capital for only a fixed time, after which they are repaid to members.