After this week’s “Will they, won’t they … no they won’t” hand-wringing over stimulus tapering by the US Federal Reserve, there seems little left today for the markets to worry about, and the FTSE 100 (FTSEINDICES: ^FTSE) is so far having a quiet day just 5 points up at 6,620 approaching midday.
If you’re the kind who worries about these ups and downs, you can take comfort from the FTSE’s average dividend yield of 3.2%, which really isn’t bad in these low-interest times.
But which companies are upping their payments? Here are three from the indices doing that this week:
Smiths Group
On Wednesday, Smiths Group (LSE: SMIN) released full-year results, and they seemed modestly positive. Revenue for the year to 31 July was up 2% to £3.1bn, though the engineering group recorded no change in underlying pre-tax profit or earnings per share (EPS). But that was in line with expectations, and there was good news on the dividend front.
A final dividend of 27p per share is to be paid, taking the total for the year up 4% to 39.5p and maintaining cover at around 2.5 times — on today’s price of 1,390p, that’s a yield of 2.8%. And with the firm’s cash flows being “more than adequate to meet the immediate investment needs of the business“, £118m will be returned to shareholders in the form of a 30-per-share special dividend.
Galliford Try
Housebuilding and construction firm Galliford Try (LSE: GFRD) also brought us full-year results, on Tuesday, and this time we saw some nice gains. Though revenue dropped 2% to £1.47bn, pre-tax profit was up 17% to £74.1m with EPS up 18% to 71.7p.
A final dividend of 25p boosted the annual payment by 23%, to 37p per share — and that provides an above-average yield of 3.5% on the latest share price of 1,050p. The shares have gained more than 50% over the past 12 months.
Redrow
It was a fine week for housebuilders this week, with Redrow (LSE: RDW) reporting good full-time figures on Wednesday. This time, revenue soared by 26% to £605m, with completions up 15% and the average selling price up 11.8% to £212,300. Margins improved too, helping take pre-tax profit up 63% to £70m and adjusted EPS up 45% to 15.7p.
After three years without a dividend, shareholders are to get 1p per share this time. That’s only a 0.4% yield, but it’s a step back in the right direction — and at 239p, Redrow shares also show an annual gain of more than 50%.
