Dividend Policy and Other Payouts – Assignment: Payout Strategy

In the supplemental readings, you saw some examples of firms that have announced dividends, stock splits, and reverse stock splits. The assigned research paper reading (Hanion & Hoopes, 2014/Hunt Library) (Attached in materials) looked at firm decisions and what factors appear to affect payout decisions.

For this activity, you will write a short paper on a firm of your choosing.

You can provide a link to the firm’s profile and financial summary, similar to what can be found in Yahoo Finance. Other websites and non-U.S. stocks can be used as well.

Find a news article/announcement that a firm has split, repurchased, changed dividend policy, or other payout discussed in the module’s readings. The announcement must have been made in the past 3 months. The announcement could include the announcement of a firm canceling its dividend payments as well as the various payouts.

For the selected firm:

Provide a brief profile of the firm including the primary businesses/industry of the firm.
Provide an overview of the industry. Address issues such as whether the firm is considered as being in a growth industry or mature industry.
Describe the role/impact your firm has on the industry.
Discuss the payout strategy selected by your firm.
What did the firm announce?
Why did the firm make the announcement?
Based on your study of dividends and other payouts does the strategy make sense?
What signals is management sending with the announcement?
Do you agree with the decision?
As a shareholder would you be pleased with the announcement? Why or why not?
Include the announcement in your paper.

Write a brief paper about 3 pages in length. Be sure you have addressed all criteria in the rubric and the information in the Criteria, Profile, and Deliverable sections.