Dividend Watch: Big Companies With Big Dividend Hikes (IR, NEM, PNC, QCOM)

Investing

Published: April 7, 2011 11:01 am

Last Updated: April 27, 2020 8:18 pm

It is time for The Daily Dividend and today’s review is on yet another flurry of dividend hikes from key companies. Ingersoll-Rand Plc (NYSE: IR), Newmont Mining Corporation (NYSE: NEM), PNC Financial Services Group Inc. (NYSE: PNC), and QUALCOMM Incorporated (NASDAQ: QCOM) are all out with very impressive gains in shareholder treatment today via dividends and/or buybacks.

Ingersoll-Rand Plc (NYSE: IR) had a huge payout hike and a buyback to boot. The industrial and commercial products maker is hiking its quarterly payout by more than 70% (yes, seventy) to $0.12 per quarter from $0.07 per quarter. This takes the yield of 0.6% to 1% with shares up around $49.00. The company also authorized $2 billion for buybacks against what is only a $16 billion market cap.

A key gold dividend announcement came from Newmont Mining Corporation (NYSE: NEM) as the company said that it plans to boost its output and more importantly that it would peg its annual dividend to the price of gold. The firm sees about $1.00 being paid per year where gold prices are currently. The current dividend is about $0.60, or a 1.1% yield, and the new dividend based on adjusted prices is about 1.7% if it remains static. Shares have risen over 3% to $58.45 today and that makes Newmont the dividend king in the gold sector by far.

PNC Financial Services Group Inc. (NYSE: PNC) is one we had expected to see after the Federal Reserve picked which companies could hike their payouts to shareholders. The hike is a monster one, up 250% to $0.35 per quarter from a current rate of only $0.10 per quarter. The prior 0.6% yield will jump to about 2.2% based on today’s share price nearing $64.00. PNC now also plans to begin repurchasing shares under a 25 million share buyback plan and that was noted as about $500 million for the rest of 2011. The market cap is just over $33 billion.

QUALCOMM Incorporated (NASDAQ: QCOM) may not seem like a traditional dividend player but that just is proving to not be the case. The new payout is going to $0.215 per quarter from $0.19 per quarter before. The company has hiked its payout since at least 2004 and the new yield will be about 1.6%. With its margins it seems like the dividend hikes can continue. For a reference, Thomson Reuters has its non-GAAP earnings estimate at $3.04 for Fiscal September 2011.

JON C. OGG

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