3. Introduction to Dividend Decisions
• Once a company makes a profit, they must decide on what to do with those
profits.
• They could continue to retain the profits within the company, or they could pay
out the profits to the owners of the firm in the form of dividends.
• Once the company decides on whether to pay dividends, they may establish a
somewhat permanent dividend policy, which may in turn impact on investors
and perceptions of the company in the financial markets.
• What they decide depends on the situation of the company now and in the
future.
• It also depends on the preferences of investors and potential investors.
4. Dividend
• Dividends are payments made to stockholders from a firm's
earnings, whether those earnings were generated in the
current period or in previous periods.
• Dividends may affect capital structure.
• Retaining earnings increases common equity relative to debt.
• Financing with retained earnings is cheaper than issuing new
common equity.
5. Two options
• There are basically two options which a firm has while
utilizing its profits after tax.
– Ploughing back the earnings by retaining them
– Distribute the same to the shareholders.
• Option I is suitable for firms which need funds to finance
their long term projects, which have growth potential and
sufficient profitability.
• Option II is suitable for those firm whose objective is to
maximize the shareholders wealth.
6. Dividend Policy and Stock Value
• There are various theories that try to explain the relationship of a firm's dividend policy and
common stock value.
Dividend Irrelevance Theory
This theory purports that a firm's dividend policy has no effect on either its value or
its cost of capital. Investors value dividends and capital gains equally.
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7. Dividend Models
Dividend Relevance Model
• Traditional Model
• Walter Model
• Gordon Model
Dividend Irrelevance Model
• Miller & Modigliani Position
8. Traditional Model
• It is given by B Graham and DL Dodd.
• This model lays down a clear emphasis on the relationship between the
dividends and the stock market.
• Acc to this model, the stock value responds positively to higher dividends and
negatively when there are low dividends.
• This model establishes the relationship between market price and dividends
using a multiplier.
• P/E ratios are directly related to the dividend payout ratios i.e a higher
dividend payout ratio will increase the P/E ratio and vice-versa.
• P = m(D+E/3)
• Where;
P = market price
M = multiplier
D = Dividend per share
E = Earnings per share
9. Limitation of the Traditional Approach
• P/E ratios are directly related to the dividend payout ratios
is not true for a firm’s whose payout is low but its earnings
are increasing.
• This approach does not hold good for those firm whose
payout is high but have slow growth rate.
• There may be few investors who would prefer the dividends
to the uncertain capital gains and a few who would prefer
low taxed capital gains.
• These conflicting factors have not been properly explained
by traditional approach.
10. Walter Model
• The dividend policy given by James E Walter considers that dividends are
relevant and they do affect the share price.
• In this model , he studied the relationship between the internal rate of return
(r) and the cost of capital of the firm(K), to give a dividend policy that
maximizes the shareholders’ wealth.
• The model studies the relevance of the dividend policy in three situations;
r > Ke
r < Ke
r = Ke
• Acc to Walter
When r > Ke the firm has to adopt Zero% payout policy.
r < ke the firm has to adopt 100% payout policy.
r = ke any policy between 0 to 100% payout.
15. Gordon Model
• Myron Gordon uses the dividend capitalization approach to study the
effect of the firms dividend policy on the stock price.
• Gordon model assumes that the investors are rational and risk
averse.
• They prefer certain returns to uncertain returns and thus put a
premium to the certain returns and discount the uncertain returns.
• Investor would prefer to pay a higher price for the stocks, which
earn them current dividends income and would discount those
stocks, which either postpones/ reduce the current income.
• The discounting will differ depending on the retention rate and the
time.
17. Acc to Gordon Market Price Per share is given by
• P = E ( 1-b)
Ke - br
18. • Acc to Gordon;
– The firms with rate of return greater than the cost of capital
should have a higher retention ratio.
– Firms which have rate of return less than the cost of capital,
should have a lower retention ratio.
– The firms which have a rate of return equal to the cost of capital
will however not have any impact on its share value, it can adopt
any retention policy.
19. Impact of Dividend Policy on Market Price
r > ke r < ke r = ke
12% > 11% 10% < 11% 11% = 11%
EPS = 15
Dividend Retention
Payout (1-b) Ratio = b Market Price (P) Market Price (P) Market Price (P)
10% 90% 750 75 136.36
20% 80% 214.28 100 136.36
30% 70% 173.08 112.5 136.36
40% 60% 158 120 136.36
50% 50% 150 125 136.36
Retain More Pay Retain less Pay
Dividend Policy less more Any combination
Formula E(1-b)
Ke - br
