Microsoft Adds Two Board Members, Increases Dividend

By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Sep 17, 6:35AM EDT · Published Sep 16, 9:15PM EDT

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Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT) lost two board members and added two. The huge software company, in the midst of one of the largest transformations in its history, also increased its dividend.

Just weeks ago, former CEO and early employee Steve Ballmer stepped down from the board.

The company announced:

Teri List-Stoll, executive vice president and chief financial officer of Kraft Foods Group Inc., and Charles W. Scharf, chief executive officer of Visa Inc., have been appointed to the company’s board of directors and will join the board effective Oct. 1, 2014.

The company also announced that Dave Marquardt and Dina Dublon have decided not to seek reelection to the board of directors and will retire from the board at the expiration of their current term following the annual shareholders meeting in December.

And:

Microsoft also announced its board of directors declared a quarterly dividend of $0.31 per share, reflecting a 3-cent, or 11 percent, increase over the previous quarter’s dividend. The dividend is payable Dec. 11, 2014, to shareholders of record on Nov. 20, 2014. The ex-dividend date will be Nov. 18, 2014.

Finally:

“These additions help strengthen our ability to serve our shareholders and work with Satya and the company’s senior leadership team on Microsoft’s ongoing transformation,” said John Thompson, Microsoft chairman.

“I’m excited to have both Teri and Charlie joining our board,” said Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft. “Teri brings exceptional financial and operational expertise, as well as great insights from her two decades of experience in consumer and retail industries. Charlie, as a sitting CEO of a large global business, brings additional strategic and operational depth to the Microsoft board, as well as a deep understanding of how commerce is changing globally.”

About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.