With its good intention of sharing more profits with shareholders, the board of directors of Unum Group UNM hiked the company's quarterly dividend by 12% and approved a new $750 million share buyback program.
The new dividend payout comes to 18.5 cents per share. The annualized dividend of 74 cents per share yields 2.1% based on Friday’s closing price of $34.94, and betters the industry average of 1.48%. Shareholders are expected to have the meatier dividend in their pockets in the third quarter of this year.
Unum Group has an impressive track of raising dividend each year. While the latest increase marks the seventh straight year of increase, this Zacks Rank #3 (Hold) accident and health insurer increased dividend by 147% from 7.5 cents paid in 2007.
A sturdy financial position backed by continued solid operational performance positions it well to increase payouts. Unum is decently liquid with cash from operations improving 15.4% year over year in the first quarter and retained earnings coming in solid at $7.5 billion (up 2.3% from 2014 end).
Apart from dividend increase, Unum also engages in share buybacks that lower the share count to boost the bottom line. To that end, the board of directors authorized the company to buy back up to $750 million share through Nov 21, 2016. The new program replaces the prior $750 million program scheduled to expire on Jun 12, 2015.
With $108 million spent on buying back 3.2 million shares in the first quarter, Unum Group repurchased $2.9 billion shares since the fourth quarter of 2007 and lowered its share count by 33%.
Several insurers are treading the same path as Unum Group and are announcing dividend increases or approving share buyback programs. Recently, the board of directors of ACE Limited ACE hiked quarterly dividend by 3.1% to 67 cents per share. The board of directors of United Fire Group, Inc. UFCS approved a 10% increase in the quarterly cash dividend to 22 cents per share. The board of directors of Marsh & McLennan Companies, Inc. MMC increased quarterly cash dividend by 10.7% to 31 cents per share and increased the share repurchase program to $2.0 billion.
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