Flowers Foods Hiked Quarterly Dividend Offers 3.3% Yield

Flowers Foods

revealed Thursday that its board has declared a quarterly dividend of $0.16per share, representing an increase of 10.3% over the same quarter last year. The latest dividend offered a yield of 3.3 percent, which is higher than the five-year average dividend yield of 2.9 percent. On an annualized basis, the dividend worked out to $0.64 a share. The company stated that this is the 55th straight quarterly dividend paid by it and is payable on June 23 to shareholders of record on June 9, 2016. Flowers Foods, president and CEO, Allen Shiver, said, "This dividend increase demonstrates the confidence our board and management team have in the strength of the company's cash flow and ability to generate value for shareholders. We are executing our disciplined strategy to grow sales, expand margins, and evaluate strategic acquisitions. With these actions, we expect to continue delivering value to shareholders through earnings and dividend growth, and share repurchases." The company's dividend growth for the five year period was 3.31 percent while the payout ratio was 66.0 percent, which was lower than the five-year average payout ratio of 69.0 percent. Shares of the company traded 1.8 percent higher on Thursday.