The Bhutan We Think We Know

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FAQ

How does Bhutan's sovereign holding company (DHI) actually perform?

Druk Holding & Investments — the commercial arm of the state — has grown from a 13-company vehicle in 2009 to a 23-company group, with back-to-back record profits — Nu 13.8 billion in 2024, then a fresh record of about Nu 18.3 billion (+33%) reported at its June-2026 annual meeting, alongside a Nu 6.5 billion dividend — well over ten times its level fifteen years earlier. Its most important role is fiscal: dividends, taxes and royalties to the government reached about Nu 22 billion in 2024, consistently around 40% of all national domestic revenue, making DHI the single most important fiscal institution in the country. The portfolio is heavily concentrated — hydropower anchors well over half of group revenue — while manufacturing is a chronic loss-maker.

DHI is best understood less as a company than as the engine of the national budget. Its profit cycles sharply around hydrology and macro shocks — group profit fell about 45% in COVID-hit 2020, then rebounded — but the long arc is steeply up, and its government contribution has roughly doubled in six years.

The anchor: hydropower. The generator DGPC produced about Nu 8.6 billion in profit in 2024 — some 63% of group profit. The 2024 consolidation of the 720 MW Mangdechhu plant onto DGPC’s balance sheet, the single largest balance-sheet event in DHI’s history, lifted group assets about 25% in one year and drove the first of the two record years.

The standout: mining. State Mining Corporation went from a 2015 startup to over Nu 2 billion in annual profit, posting the highest return on equity ever recorded across the portfolio.

The drag: manufacturing. Cement, steel and dairy contributed only about 5.6% of 2024 revenue while absorbing repeated equity injections; aviation (Drukair) lost more than Nu 2.8 billion through COVID before a fragile return to profit.

The reason DHI’s performance is a national question, not just a corporate one, is that its ~40% share of domestic revenue ties the state budget directly to a hydrology-dependent portfolio — which is exactly the accounting tangle behind Paradox #67, the same money counted four ways. See also #1 the green kingdom that imports brown power and #21 the stock market that never became a market.

Primary sources