Modern engineering at Apple
Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) has experienced slowing growth lately, although the iPad still firing on all cylinders, the iPhone is clearly maturing. Unfortunately, Tim Cook has already said that investors and consumers will have to wait until fall for new and exciting products with more growth potential.
But the good news is that the company has decided to finally reward investors for their patience, while product engineers keep working on the next launches the company has resorted to another kind of engineering – the financial kind – in order to better allocate its financial resources.
The Cupertino giant will be issuing low-cost debt in order to increase its dividends and repurchase program. The new quarterly dividend of $3.05 means a dividend yield of 2.7% at current prices, and things look even more attractive if we include buybacks into the total yield equation.
Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) increased its buyback program to $60 billion through the end of 2015; a steep upgrade from the $10 billion plan announced last year. At current prices, the company could repurchase almost 15% of shares outstanding for that amount. Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) will issue more stock for employee compensation, and the total amount of shares repurchased will depend on the timing of the transaction and the evolution of the stock price during that period, so we can´t assume a 5% annual reduction in the amount of shares outstanding through 2015.
However, even under conservative assumptions, let´s say for example that the company reduces only 3.3% of shares outstanding over the next twelve months; the total yield – dividends plus buybacks – could easily be near 6% over the next year. That´s quite an attractive yield for a company which had no dividends or buybacks a couple of years ago.
And it doesn´t end there, Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) trades at a P/E ratio near 10, which is a larger than 30% discount to the company´s 5 year average P/E around 15 and even cheaper in comparison to the S&P 500 index, which carries a P/E ratio of 17. There is a lot of upside potential in Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL), especially if the company manages to reignite growth over the next quarters.
IBM: increasingly big money
International Business Machines Corp. (NYSE:IBM) matured a long time ago, back in the nineties the company has decided to focus on profitability and value added businesses like software and services as opposed to increasing sales at the expense of margins in commoditized areas like hardware.
And the strategy paid off, International Business Machines Corp. (NYSE:IBM) has become an undisputed leader in its industry: according to Interbrand the company owns the second most valuable brand in the world behind Coca-Cola, and it counts each of the Fortune 2000 companies as clients.
With expanding profit margins came growing dividend payments. The current quarterly dividend of $0.95 means a yield near 2% on a forward basis, which doesn´t sound extraordinary, but International Business Machines Corp. (NYSE:IBM) has consecutively increased payments for the last 18 years and the payout ratio below 20% of earnings leaves plenty of upside room, so investors in International Business Machines Corp. (NYSE:IBM) have good reasons to expect further dividend increases over the next years.
And that´s only part of the capital distribution program, over the last twenty years the company has reduced by half the amount of shares outstanding, which is an amazing achievement.
International Business Machines Corp. (NYSE:IBM) has recently announced $5 billion in additional funds for use in the company’s stock repurchase program, this is in addition to the $6.2 billion remaining at the end of March from a prior authorization. The company also has plans to request an additional share repurchase authorization at the October 2013 board meeting.
Since 200, International Business Machines Corp. (NYSE:IBM) has returned over $150 billion to shareholders in the form of dividends and share repurchases, considering that the current market cap is around $223 billion, this bodes well in terms of total returns for investors.
Mobile growth for these dividends
While device manufacturers like Apple and Samsung fight each other for dominance in smartphones and tablets, QUALCOMM, Inc. (NASDAQ:QCOM) doesn´t need to worry too much about that competition since it´s a well entrenched supplier for both companies. This provider of chips and technologies for mobile devices has many years of exciting growth ahead of it as the mobile revolution expands into emerging markets.
The company has a rock solid track record of recurrent dividend increases, and it gave a big boost to its capital distribution program back in March when it a announced a 40% increase in dividend payments. This brought the annual dividend payout to $1.40 per share which means a dividend yield around 2.3% at current prices. Keeping in mind that the payout ratio is only 27.5% of earnings, there is plenty of room for dividend growth.
QUALCOMM, Inc. (NASDAQ:QCOM) also launched a new repurchase program, the company can repurchase up to $5 billion in stock under the new program, this replaces the prior one that was for $4 billion and had $2.5 billion of repurchasing authorization remaining. Since 2003 the company has distributed $19.9 billion to shareholders via a combination of dividends and buybacks, and there is no end in sight for the growing capital distributions at QUALCOMM, Inc. (NASDAQ:QCOM).
Bottom line
The tech industry is not the realm of small and risky capital consuming companies anymore. As the sector matures, and individual names become well established players with financial strength, tech leaders will increasingly reward shareholders with growing dividends and stock buybacks.
The article 3 Tech Leaders With Growing Dividends and Stock Buybacks originally appeared on Fool.com and is written by Andrés Cardenal.
Copyright © 1995 – 2013 The Motley Fool, LLC. All rights reserved. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
