“On February 16, Apple will pay shareholders of record a quarterly dividend of $0.57 per share, but investors must own the company’s stock before February 9 in order to qualify,” Daniel Eran Dilger reports for AppleInsider. “Apple will pay out $3.1 billion in dividends on its outstanding shares for the quarter.”
“The February dividend will be the eleventh to occur since the company issued a 7-for-1 stock split. That split also converted the dividend from $3.29 per share to 47 cents per share, which Apple subsequently increased last year to 52 cents,” Dilger reports. “February’s dividend will be the fourth 57 cent dividend Apple has paid since it announced plans to increase its dividend from 52 cents during its Q2 2016 earnings conference call.”
Dilger reports, “Over the past four quarters, Apple has paid out around $12 billion in dividends to its shareholders, distributing close to $3 billion every quarter, although that number has decreased slightly in tandem with the company’s stock buybacks…”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Hopefully, Apple’s capital return program will get even more aggressive after tax repatriation (holiday or, better yet, real corporate tax reform) that’s expected with the new U.S. administration and congress.