Boston, MA 10/08/2014 (wallstreetpr) – Costamare Inc (NYSE:CMRE) disclosed that it has declared a quarterly cash dividend of 28 cents a share for the period ended September quarter. The company indicated that the dividend declaration was subject to the Board of Directors discretion and depends on its earnings and cash requirements.
Dividend Payment
The Costamare Inc (NYSE:CMRE) stated that October 22 has been fixed as the record date for determining the shareholders’ name, its statement revealed. It would be paying a dividend to all the eligible shareholders on November 5. It has 74.8 million shares outstanding currently.
On an annualized basis, the dividend rate worked out to $1.12 a share. The stock would become ex-dividend from October 20. The latest dividend offered a yield of 5.3% while the ten-year projected average dividend yield was slightly higher at 6.37%.
Since the company maintained the dividend for more than a year, there was no growth in average dividend yield for the last five-year period. The current dividend rate represented a payout ratio of 81.00%.
Dividend History
Costamare Inc (NYSE:CMRE) has started paying a dividend only in January 2011. It commenced with 25 cents a share as dividend and maintained it for three quarters till July 2011, data from Nasdaq suggested.
The company has increased the dividend rate to 27 cents a share in October 2011. From then on, it maintained the same dividend rate of 27 cents a share for ten quarters, i.e. two and half years, till January current year.
In May current year, Costamare Inc (NYSE:CMRE) has lifted the dividend rate by one cent a share to 28 cents a share and has maintained the same for the third quarter in a row currently.
The company has been struggling to increase the dividend rate probably due to volatility in its profit. For instance, the company earned a profit of $30.56 million June quarter in 2013 and it dipped to $27.38 million in the current year’s June quarter. In the first quarter of the current year, its profit was $19.8 million.
