Microsoft Corp. today announced that its board of directors declared a quarterly dividend of $0.20 per share, reflecting a 4 cent or 25 percent increase over the previous quarter’s dividend. The dividend is payable December 8, 2011 to shareholders of record on November 17, 2011. The ex-dividend date will be November 15, 2011.
The dividend can be annualized to around 2.95% at the current share price, better than the 10 year US Treasury Bill rate, which is closer to 2%.
“Our strong financial results enable us to increase our dividend as part of our ongoing commitment to return capital to our shareholders,” said Peter Klein, chief financial officer of Microsoft.
In the last quarter Microsoft announced record revenue of $17.37 billion and profits of $5.87 billion.
The company is continuing its $40 billion share repurchase program approved by the board of directors in September 2008. The repurchase program, which expires on September 30, 2013, had approximately $12.2 billion remaining as of June 30, 2011.
Microsoft’s share price has been dogged by poor confidence in the future of the company, rather than poor performance of the consistently immensely profitable company. In the last month however the share price has rallied from around £24 to $27, possibly due to increased confidence in Microsoft’s mobile strategy.