Friday Email: 15 March 2013
Every Friday morning our lead analyst Mark Riding sends out his weekly run-down and upcoming events in the investor calendar, like this one:
It has been a quieter week than the previous two as the reporting season tails off. It was another good week for dividends with no cuts which is what we like to see. The Pru showed up Aviva and RSA by increasing their dividend for the year by 15.9%. Other highlights were Antofagasta more than doubling its payout; Inchcape increased their dividend by 32% and Fresnillo by 15%. I was pleased to see that one of February's dividends of the week William Morrison increased their dividend by 10% on Thursday and now trade almost 9% higher than when the article was published. A reminder here:
Hikma Pharmaceuticals increased by 23% and Fresnillo produced a surprise special dividend. Hansteen increased by 12.5% and Savills increased by over 20%. Synthomer increased their final dividend 57% this morning.
As far as the optimizer is concerned I see Belgacom, at the top have declared their dividend and are yielding 8.78% from that one dividend. Goes ex-dividend on the 23rd April and you get paid three days later on the 26th. Sounds unbelievable really but here it is in blue, black and white:
http://www.belgacom.com/be-en/subhome/SH_Investors.page
P.S. I don't think we will see the 81 cents at the interim stage again next year. I think they will revert to 50. If you do have a look at this, check with your broker about witholding taxes, etc. I am unsure of the Belgian rules.
So, the dividend increases continue to mount and the doomsters who predicted that 2012/13 would be a poor year for dividend increases are looking silly. (o.k. wrong) We at DividendMax are seeing far more of our forecasts beaten than we expected and there have been few disappointments so far in 2013.
On Saturday we will implement the quarterly FTSE reshuffle with Easyjet and London Stock Exchange being promoted to the FTSE 100 and Intu (formerly Capital Shopping Centres Ltd.) and Kazakhymys being demoted to the FTSE 250. We have initiated coverage of Keller, NMC health, 888 holdings and Thomas Cook who all enter the FTSE 250. We will retain coverage of JD Sports, Raven Russia and Stobart who leave the FTSE 250.
A quiet week lies ahead on the reporting front. Next upon us is the ex-dividend season and the European (especially Germany) reporting / dividend declaration season.
The Friday email is delivered to over 20,000 subscriber’s every week, and remains a widely read run-down of recent events and what investors can expect in the week ahead written by our chief analyst Mark Riding.
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Read next: 08 March 2013
It has been an interesting week in which the insurers showed contrasting fortunes. After RSA last week Aviva followed suit by slashing its final dividend. In contrast, Standard Life increased its final dividend and could afford to pay a special dividend, resulting in a 22.6p return on the 3rd April. Admiral and Legal & General both increased their final dividends by 20%. I am certainly glad that I chose Legal & General for my dividend of the week on January 30th, although Aviva was tempting as it did have the higher (on the face of it) prospective yield. In the end I made the right choice.
