On Thursday, March 21, HP announced that its quarterly dividend would be increased by 10% to $0.1452 per share per quarter for a yearly amount of $0.5808 per share. This is the second 10% year over year increase with the previous increase announced a year ago.
From June 1998 to March 2011 (thirteen years) HP’s quarterly dividend was $0.08 or $0.32 per year. In June 2011 it was raised to $0.12 per share, a 50% increase, for four quarters. For the June 2012 payment it was raised by 10% to $0.132 per share which was the base for this increase to $0.1452 per share.
In fiscal 2012 HP generated $10.6 billion in operating cash flow. It used $3.7 billion for capital expenditures, down from $4.5 billion the previous year, $1.6 billion for share repurchases vs. $10.2 billion a year ago and $1 billion for dividends vs. $844 million a year ago.
The shares were up $0.04 to $22.36 in the after market and HP has about 2 billion shares outstanding.