Business is good for magazine/TV company Meredith Corporation. Its board of directors has approved an increase in its dividend and also reinstated its stock buyback program.
The dividend increase of 11% to 25 and a half cents per share quarterly ($1.02 per year) marks the 18th straight year that Meredith has increased its dividend payout. The new dividend will be paid March 15th to shareholders of record on February 28th.
“We believe strongly in returning capital to shareholders, and rewarding long-term holders of the Meredith Corporation,” said Meredith CFO Joseph Ceryanec. “If you look back over the last 10 years, we’ve returned about half of our cash generated from operations to shareholders in the form of dividends and share repurchases, while reinvesting the other half into growing our business. We believe that’s a good balance to maintain going forward.”
The reinstituted share repurchase program currently allows company management to buy back up to 1.1 million of Meredith’s shares. The company said it will revisit the size of the buyback authorization later this year in connection with planning for fiscal 2012, which begins July 1, 2011. Meredith is currently in Q3 of its fiscal year. The company reported its fiscal Q2 results last week.
