Apologies to those of you that read Hiscox as our dividend of the week. Due to a data glitch we had the wrong ex-dividend dates and withdrew the article as soon as we realised.
For dividend of the week we are going to look at those companies that have declared special dividends and where those dividends are not too far from being paid. This gives a relatively small selction as you would expect, but there is some real quality of earnings and dividend history to choose from. Going into the countdown within DividendMax, we will look up to a quarter into the future at all of the 'declared' dividends in the FTSE 350. First up is Spirax-Sarco engineering paying 37p plus 100p, going ex dividend on the 17th April. Next up is ITV paying 1.8p plus 4p and going ex on 1st May. Then we have Fidessa paying 24.5p plus a 45p special, going ex on 8th May. Also on that day we have Antofagasta paying 8.4p plus a 52p special. Finally, going ex dividend on 15th May, we have 888 holdings paying 3.02 plus a 1.34p special. The yield on these combined dividends against the current price in order is:
Antofagasta 60.4 / 1030p yield= 5.86%
Spirax-Sarco 137p / 2610 yield= 5.24%
ITV 5.8p / 121.7p yield= 4.76%
Fidessa 69.5p / 1896p yield= 3.66%
888 holdings 4.36p / 166.9 yield= 2.61%
The good thing about companies who pay special dividends is that you know that there is plenty of surplus cash to fund the 'normal' dividend. It is difficult to choose a winner so this week we are saying, take your pick!
