Lincoln Electric (LECO -4.07%) is attempting to juice its stock with a fresh shareholder payout and a new share repurchase initiative. The company has declared a quarterly dividend of $0.20 per share, to be paid on October 15 to shareholders of record as of September 30. That amount matches each of the firm's preceding three distributions, the most recent of which was paid on July 15. Prior to that, Lincoln Electric handed out $0.17 per share.
The just-declared dividend annualizes to $0.80 per share. That yields 1.3% at the firm's current stock price of $60.94.
The company's board has also authorized a buyback program for up to 15-million shares of stock. The program is in addition to the previous 30-million share initiative; just over 2-million shares remain of that program.
The buybacks will be effected through various means, including open market transactions, and privately negotiated purchases.
At the moment, Lincoln Electric has slightly over 83-million shares outstanding.
The company is expected to release its Q2 earnings on July 29.
