The Carsales.com Ltd (ASX: CAR) share price is climbing during morning trade, adding to its decent gains last week.
This comes despite the auto listings company not releasing any price-sensitive announcements to the ASX today.
At the time of writing, the Carsales share price is up 4.33% to $21.93.
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Why is the Carsales share price going up?
While the company has been quiet on the news front lately, investors are bidding up the Carsales share price.
This is most likely because of the upcoming ex-dividend date for Carsales shares.
Investors need to buy Carsales shares before the market close today to be eligible for the interim dividend. The ex-dividend date is tomorrow, Friday 18 March.
It's worth noting that historically when a company reaches its ex-dividend day, its shares tend to fall in proportion to the dividend paid out. This is because investors tend to sell off the company's shares after securing the dividend.
When can Carsales shareholders expect payment?
Eligible shareholders will receive a dividend payment of $25.5 cents per share on 19 April. This represents growth of 2% compared against the previous corresponding dividend of 25 cents per share.
It's also worth noting that this is the biggest dividend ever paid by the company.
The interim dividend is fully franked, which means shareholders can expect to receive tax credits.
Investors can elect to reinvest their dividends through the dividend reinvestment plan (DRP), which will buy them more shares in lieu of a cash payment.
While there is no DRP share price discount, the last election date for Carsales shareholders to opt-in is 22 March.
The DRP will be calculated using the 5-day average daily volume-weighted price from 22 March to 28 March.
The latest dividend is consistent with the company's longstanding dividend payout policy of 80%.
Carsales share price summary
Over the last 12 months, the Carsales share price has surged by almost 20% but it is down 14% year to date.
The company's shares reached a 52-week high of $26.67 in November before treading 17.7% lower to today's price.
Carsales commands a market capitalisation of roughly $5.94 billion and has a trailing dividend yield of 2.26%.
