Your hydropower shares after the Rasuwa flood: dividend risk, insurance recoveries, and what the plant's claim means for you

A cousin bought 100 kitta of Chilime in 2080 because it was the one hydropower stock his father trusted: government-backed, dividend every year, nothing exciting. On 25 August it closed at Rs 475.10. On 3 November it was Rs 340.90. He has not sold, and he asked the question every holder on the Bhote Koshi corridor is asking: will there be a dividend, and is the insurance going to make this whole?

The crash itself is old news now. Ten weeks later, enough has been disclosed to see what the flood means for shareholders, and enough is still missing to know where the real risk sits.

Where the prices are now

The sharpest falls came in the first two sessions. What matters for a holder is that there has been no real recovery since.

Pre-flood and 27 August prices are from OnlineKhabar; 3 November prices are from ShareSansar's company pages; the percentages are mine. Clickmandu reports slightly different 25 August closes, so treat the base as approximate.

The wider sector has moved on. In the week of 26 to 30 October the hydropower sub-index was the best-performing sector on NEPSE, up 3.78%. The market has separated the plants in the flood path from the rest of the sector. That is the rational outcome, and it means a hydro index fund or a broad portfolio has already absorbed the shock. A concentrated holding in one Rasuwa ticker has not.

The insurance money, so far

Flood claims have been revised several times as surveyors replaced early estimates with assessed figures:

Rs 821.3 million on Rs 20.90 billion is about 3.9% paid, including advances. Engineering and contractor-risk policies, which is where hydropower construction cover sits, account for Rs 4.40 billion of claims and Rs 174 million paid. Property policies account for Rs 9.56 billion claimed and Rs 162.8 million paid.

The regulator has tried to speed this up. The Nepal Insurance Authority's board approved a separate brief procedure for Rasuwa flood claims on 22 September. Under it, insurers can pay an advance of up to 50% of estimated liability, reinsurers must advance 50% to insurers, and claims up to Rs 5 lakh can be settled without a surveyor. That last rule helps households. A Rs 10 billion plant claim still goes through a full survey.

One caution on all these totals. Oriental Insurance's chief executive told Reuters the figures "largely reflect insured exposure rather than final claims". A sum insured is a ceiling, not a payout.

What each company has actually disclosed

Rasuwagadhi (RHPL). Generation has been halted since 26 August. The company told NEPSE it has about Rs 17.70 billion in long- and short-term loans, has formally informed its insurer, and that restart timing "will be determined only after a technical assessment." The government's preliminary damage estimate for the project is Rs 35.91 billion.

Rasuwagadhi was also in trouble before this flood. A July 2025 flood had already damaged it, it restarted partially in December 2025, and it halted again on 13 July 2026 when the Lhende Khola rose. Its FY 2082/83 results showed a fourth-quarter net loss of Rs 1.45 arba, an annualised EPS of minus 21.13, and net worth per share down to Rs 67.01 from Rs 94.27, per aggregator data. With reserves negative, there is no accumulated profit to pay a dividend from.

Trishuli Jal Vidhyut (TVCL). The government's preliminary damage estimate for Upper Trishuli-3B is Rs 11.988 billion. The company has not disclosed a damage figure or restart date. TVCL's total debt is about Rs 3.75 billion, and the Nepal Bankers' Association counts Rs 3.3 billion of Nabil-led exposure on the 37 MW project.

Mailung Khola (MKJC). Preliminary damage is put at about Rs 50 million for the 5 MW plant. The company has informed its insurer and says restart is "impossible to say." It already had a 1:0.70 rights issue proposed before the flood.

Chilime (CHCL). The government's preliminary estimate for Chilime is Rs 7.128 billion. NEA's executive director told Ratopati that NEA's five destroyed plants were uninsured, named the 22 MW Chilime plant among them, and said: "Now we realize we should have insured." Chilime Hydropower Company is listed separately from NEA, and I found no disclosure from it on its own cover. For a CHCL holder, that disclosure is the most important document still missing.

Why insurance will not protect the dividend

Even a fully paid claim rebuilds the plant. It does not automatically replace the electricity sales lost while the plant is offline.

That needs Loss of Revenue cover for an operating plant, or Advance Loss of Profit cover for one under construction. Claims may include those "if the policy includes them," and Clickmandu reported that standard policies often do not. No affected company has said whether it holds this cover.

The arithmetic for a holder is blunt. Months of zero generation means months of zero revenue, while interest on the debt keeps running. Whatever profit FY 2083/84 might have produced is gone for the offline period. The FY 2082/83 dividend decision coming in December rests on last year's books, but a board staring at a repair bill has every reason to retain cash.

Chilime's last cycle shows the timing. It paid 8% bonus and 4% cash for FY 2081/82, with book closure on Poush 17 and the AGM on Poush 30. The book-closure guide explains what to watch for. No affected company had proposed a FY 2082/83 dividend as of 3 November.

Rights shares: the dilution question

Rebuilding costs money, and a company with heavy debt and no revenue has three places to get it: insurers, lenders, or shareholders. No post-flood rights issue has been announced. MKJC's pre-flood 1:0.70 proposal is still listed as "coming soon," pending Electricity Regulatory Commission approval.

If a rights issue does come, every existing holder has to choose between paying in at the issue price or being diluted. The right shares vs bonus vs dividend guide walks through that math. Budget for the possibility now, rather than discovering it in a book-closure notice.

The lenders and the relief package

The Cabinet's relief package of early September lets flood-hit borrowers restructure once, with the rate capped at the lower of base rate plus 0.5 percentage points or base rate plus the existing premium for a year. It names industries, businesses and commercial establishments. Hydropower is not mentioned.

NRB separately allowed directly affected businesses, projects and enterprises in the Bhote Koshi and Budhi Gandaki areas to defer instalments due by end-Asoj to end-Poush, assessed case by case. Under a June 2026 NRB rule, extending an interest-capitalisation moratorium on a hydro loan makes it "restructured," which requires at least a 25% loan-loss provision.

That last point matters if you also hold bank shares. The bankers' association put about Rs 6.5 billion of bank lending at risk across four Rasuwa projects. Provisions against it come out of bank profits, and bank profits pay bank dividends.

Developers are lobbying for more. The Independent Power Producers' Association has asked for licence extensions of at least two years, quick force-majeure relief, low-interest loans and customs exemptions. NEA's board approved a commercial-operation deadline extension framework on 6 October for "circumstances beyond developer's control," without naming any Rasuwa project.

If you hold one of these stocks

1. Read the company's own filings, not the price. Damage assessment, insurance disclosure and the first-quarter report will tell you more than any day's trading.
2. Check your concentration. If one flood-path ticker is a large share of your portfolio, that is the real problem the flood exposed. The NEPSE sector risk guide covers how hydro concentration behaves.
3. Price the rights risk in. Keep cash aside if you would want to subscribe to a rights issue rather than be diluted.
4. Do not treat the 52-week low as a floor. RHPL's book value per share is already down to about Rs 67, against a market price of Rs 170.10. The EPS, P/E and book value guide explains why that gap matters.
5. Watch the insurers too. The non-life sub-index was the worst sector in the last week of October, and the Kathmandu Post reported that flood claims will "leave little room for dividend distribution this year" at non-life insurers.

What you actually need to know

1. The hit stocks have not recovered, and the sector has moved on without them. RHPL, TVCL, MKJC and Chilime are 26% to 33% below 25 August, while the hydro sub-index led NEPSE in late October.
2. Insurance is slow and partial. About 3.9% of claims have been paid, no company has disclosed its claim amount, and lost-revenue cover is unconfirmed everywhere. NEA's own plants, Chilime named among them, were reported uninsured.
3. Dividend and rights decisions come from mid-December. Rasuwagadhi has no profit to pay from. For the rest, watch the board proposals and any rights notice.

Hold one of these and want help reading its next disclosure? Email parjanya57@gmail.com.

This post is part of the Nepal Money Basics guide, in the Invest the surplus section.