Session 8: Corporate Finance Reading 31: Dividends and Share Repurchases: Analysis
LOS b: Discuss the types of information (signals) that dividend initiations, increases, decreases, and omissions may convey.
David Johnson, Karim Baghwani, and Marlon Fitzpatrick are equity research associates at Carp National Investments. Over lunch in the cafeteria, they began discussing the information content of dividends. Baghwani made the following statements to his colleagues:
Statement 1: There is no doubt that shareholders perceive changes in dividend policy as conveying important information about the firm. However, it is viewed differently in the U.S. and in Japan. In the U.S., investors infer that even a small change in a dividend sends a major signal about a company’s prospects.
Statement 2: In Japan, however, investors are less likely to assume that even a large change in dividend policy signals anything about a company’s prospects. Thus, Japanese companies are more free to increase and decrease their dividends than their U.S. counterparts without concerns over investor reactions.
With respect to Baghwani's statements:
Both statements are correct. In the U.S., investors infer that even small changes in a dividend send a major signal about a company’s future prospects. However, in Asian countries such as Japan, investors are less likely to assume that even a large change in dividend policy signals anything about a company’s future prospect. |