1. Dividend Policy (I).
Introduction:
The dividends are decided by the firm’s board of directors and paid to the
shareholders who are registered on the “record date”.
Types of dividends:
1. Cash Dividends: These Dividends are paid in cash, usually quarterly.
2. Companies can declare both regular and “extra” dividends. Regular
dividends usually remain unchanged in the future, but “extraordinary”
or “special” dividends are unlikely to be repeated.
3. Stock dividend: Shareholders receive new stock in the corporation as
a form of a dividend. Like a “stock split”, the number of shares
increases, but no cash changes hands.
Both cash and stock dividends reduce the value per share.
4. An alternative way to distribute cash is with share repurchases. The
firm buys back its own shares. This can be done:
 On the Open Market
 Tender offer
 Buying stock from major shareholders.
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2. Regularities observed in dividend policy:
(Results found by Lintner (1965) and Fama (2001))
1. Firms have long-run target dividend payout ratios.
2. Mature companies with stable earnings usually have a
higher dividend pay-out ratio than growth companies.
3. Managers focus more on dividend changes than in absolute
amounts.
4. Transitory changes in earnings usually do not affect
dividend pay-outs.
5. Only long-term shifts in earnings can be followed by
changes in dividends.
6. Managers are reluctant to change divided pay-out ratios.
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3. Why do companies pay dividends?
If investors have to pay higher taxes on dividends than in capital gains, then
firms that pay dividends should have a higher cost of equity than firms that
do not pay dividends.
Thus, why do firms pay dividends?
One argument to justify the payment of dividends is that dividends are
cash in hand, while capital gains are cash in the bush. Capital gains to be
received in the future should be riskier than the dividends received today.
Think about investor YES who invested in a firm that pays dividends and
investor NO who holds shares of a firm that does not pay dividends. Is
investor YES better off than investor NO? Investor YES receives the cash
now, but what is she going to do with this cash? She might want to spend it,
but investor NO could also sell her shares and spend the proceeds. If
investor YES wants to invest the money she will face the appropriate level
of risk.
It is important to remember that the value of the firm is equal to future
cash flows discounted at the appropriate discount rate. There is no reason to
think that the future cash flows will change with the dividend policy, and
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4. under the M&M assumptions, there is no reason to believe that the payment
of dividends will change the discount rate.
1. M&M (1961)
In perfect capital markets (under similar assumptions to what we studied
in the M&M (1958), dividend policy is irrelevant.
Intuition of this theory: Let us imagine a firm that pays dividend
without changing investment and financing policies. The money that the
company will pay as dividends has to come from somewhere else. If the
company maintains the amount of debt (does not borrow to pay the
dividend), the company needs to issue new shares to finance the dividend.
The new shareholders (the investors who buy the shares) will pay only what
the shares are worth, and the old shareholders will receive the money (as a
dividend) paid by the new shareholders. After the dividend is paid, the
value per-share should be equal to the old price minus the dividend paid by
the new shareholders. The value of the firm remains the same, but money
changed hands from new to old shareholders. Dividend policies are
irrelevant.
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5. However, firms do pay dividends.
Following a parallel argument with the lecture on cost of capital, let us
modify the M&M assumptions to transform the “ideal” world that is
assumed into a more “realistic” world.
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6. The presence of Taxes
M&M (61) assume that there are no personal taxes.
Taxes on dividends (ordinary income) are higher than taxes on capital
gains. Thus, under the presence of personal taxes, companies should not pay
dividends because investors require a higher return to companies that pay
dividends. If payments are to be made to shareholders, the company should
opt for other alternatives, such as share repurchases. This is truth if taxes on
dividend income are higher than taxes on capital gains.
However, different investors have different tax rates. High tax rate
individuals will prefer that the firm invest more, whereas low tax individuals
may prefer that the firm do not invest and pay dividends. Investors will self-
select in clienteles. However, The presence of clienteles do not explain why
firms decide start to pay dividends.
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7. Asymmetries of Information
M&M (61) irrelevance policy argues that in perfect markets dividend
policy is irrelevant. One of the assumptions of the model is that all
individuals have the same information.
Managers and insiders have access to private information. Managers
of firms that expect a high stream of cash flows (good type of firms) would
want to convey this information to the market. Remember that good and bad
firms have the incentive to signal that they are good firms, so we need a
binding signal that allow us to separate the good from the bad firms.
We already indicate that the use of debt conveys this positive signal to
the market. This signal is credible because good firms can issue debt but
bad firms cannot because they will have financial problems in the future.
The market understands the signal, (Firms that issue debt are good firms)
and will reward those firms that issue debt with an increases in value.
Dividends can be used in a similar way to convey good (or bad)
information. A firm that increases dividends signals that it expects future
cash flows because the dividend policy tends to remain steady over the
years. Bad firms can also increase dividends, but they are bad firms and in
the future they will need to cut dividends, and the market will penalize them.
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8. This signaling perspective could explain why firms pay dividends: to
convey good private information to the marketplace.
Agency Costs.
Dividend payments can be an instrument to monitor managers. When
firms pay dividends they often need to subsequently go to the capital
markets to fund the projects. When firms go to the financial markets they
will be scrutinized by different market participants. For instance, investors
will require an analysis of the creditworthiness of the firm.
Supporting this view, companies tend to near-simultaneously announce
dividend payments and raise new capital
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9. Empirical Evidence on Dividends:
1. Firms tend to maintain a steady dividend policy. Firm do not like to
reduce dividends, and they will only increase dividend payouts if they
are sure that will be able to maintain them in the future.
2. Companies that announce an increase of dividends or that they are
initiating the payment of dividends are viewed positively by the
market with an increase in the price of the stock.
3. To the contrary, firms that announce dividend reductions experience a
drop in value around the announcement date.
4. The evidence on the presence of clienteles is ambiguous.
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10. Share repurchases
Share repurchases are an alternative way to pay cash to current
shareholders. What do you think will happen to the value of the firm when
it announces a share repurchase plan?
On average the price of the sock increases when the firm announces a
stock repurchase.
You need to think about the different theories that we saw to justify this
increase in value.
1. Increase in value of the firm because managers are signaling that the
shares are undervalued (otherwise they might not want to buy them)
2. Increase in value if they use debt to repurchase shares because of the
tax benefits of debt
3. Increase in value because investors pay taxes on capital gains, and
higher taxes on ordinary income if they receive dividends.
4. Increase in value of stocks because there is a transfer of wealth from
bondholders to stockholders
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