The Jamaica Stock Exchange building on Harbour Street. File

Michael Lee Chin's National Commercial Bank (NCB) made super profits of $5.5 billion last year, a billion more than the year before, but the bank was not as generous to its stockholders, paying out $150 million less for dividends.

But it was Carreras Limited that had the biggest impact on returns to investors, cutting back on its payouts by $2.5 billion.

In fact, listed companies on the Jamaica Stock Exchange paid out a combined $15.4 billion in dividends, but that was $3 billion or one-fifth less than the $18.4 billion that flowed to investors in 2005, result