Sonoco Products Hikes Dividend By 5.7%

Sonoco Products Co SON revealed its board has declared a quarterly dividend of $0.37 a share. This represented an increase of 5.7 percent from the previous quarterly dividend of $0.35 a share. The company said that the dividend would be paid on June 10. For that purpose, the company has fixed a record date of May 13 for determining the names of the shareholders to get the dividend.

The company's President and CEO, Jack Sanders, said "Today's dividend increase demonstrates our confidence in the continued earnings growth of Sonoco and our dedication to returning value to our shareholders. For more than nine decades, Sonoco has been committed to paying consecutive quarterly dividends to our shareholders, and over the past decade we have returned more than $1.5 billion in cash to shareholders in the form of increased dividends and share repurchases."

Sanders said further, "In addition to paying higher dividends in 2016, Sonoco also is repurchasing up to $100 million of our outstanding common stock. Combined, we expect to return approximately $240 million in cash to shareholders."

Sonoco said that its projected annualized dividend of $1.48 per share offers a yield of 3.0 percent, based on the Company's closing stock price of $48.80 on April 19. The company's dividend yield was one of the highest payouts provided by any U.S. packaging company and was about 35 percent higher than the dividend yield of the S&P 500.

On Wednesday, shares of the company traded 0.23 percent higher.