Ushering in good news for shareholders, SAP SE SAP has decided to reward shareholders’ with a dividend increase plan. Shares of the company gained around 3.5% during the regular trading session on Mar 20, following this news.
In particular, SAP has recommended a 10% year-over-year increase in the dividend rate to €1.10 per share for fiscal 2014 at the Annual General Meeting of its shareholders on May 20, 2015. Upon approval of this recommendation by the shareholders, the total dividend distribution will amount to about €1.3 billion, signifying a payout ratio of 40%.
SAP has scheduled the payment of its 2014 fiscal year dividend on or after May 21, 2015. SAP plans to amend its previous dividend policy of paying a total dividend of over 35% of profit after tax and will now pay more than 35% instead.
We believe the latest move by SAP gave shareholders a reason to rejoice, as evident by its share price movement. Notably, the company’s continued growth in 2014 was aided by business diversity and well performing SAP S/4HANA solutions.
Of late, SAP has been focusing on leveraging the competency of its SAP HANA Platform via a spate of deals. Last week, the company collaborated with the International Cricket Council better known as ICC to offer ball-by-ball match analysis (read more: SAP to Bring Fastest Live Updates for ICC World Cup 2015 Fans). Also, earlier this month, SAP announced the availability of its SAP HANA Cloud Platform mobile services fostering innovation on mobile platforms (read more: SAP HANA Omnipresent in Business Mobility, Innovation).
SAP currently holds a Zacks Rank #4 (Sell). Better-ranked stocks in the industry include Interactive Aspen Technology, Inc. AZPN, MicroStrategy Inc. MSTR and DST Systems Inc. DST. All these stocks sport a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy).
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