WM boosts dividend to shareholders

The board of directors of Houston-based Waste Management Inc. (WM) has announced it has approved a 6.5 percent increase in the planned quarterly dividend rate, from 38.5 cents to $41 cents per share. On an annual basis, the per share dividend has increased from $1.54 to $1.64. It marks the 13th consecutive year WM has increased its planned quarterly dividend, says the company.

WM also has received authorization from its board to repurchase $1 billion of its common stock in future financial quarters. This authorization “refreshes the company’s previous $1 billion share buyback authorization under which Waste Management entered into agreements in 2015 to repurchase $750 million of its common stock,” says WM.

“Over the last few years, we have seen our base generation of free cash flow increase from between $1.2 billion and $1.3 billion to a new base of approximately $1.4 billion,” says David P. Steiner, CEO of WM. “The growth in our free cash flow has allowed us to increase this year’s dividend more than we have in the recent past, and combined with share repurchase authorization, demonstrates our confidence in the free cash flow generation of our business.”

The board intends to declare the first quarter 2016 dividend amount in February and is expected that the first increased dividend will be paid in March of 2016, says WM.

Future share repurchases, including those under the new $1 billion authorization, will be made at the discretion of management and will depend on a number of factors, says WM, “including the company’s net earnings, financial condition, cash required for future business plans and other factors deemed relevant.”

Waste Management Inc. provides collection, transfer, recycling and resource recovery and disposal services and is a developer, operator and owner of waste-to-energy and landfill gas-to-energy facilities in the United States. The company’s customers include residential, commercial, industrial and municipal customers in North America.