It's Australia's largest supermarket chain, bringing in nearly $32 billion of sales last half, but do Woolworths Group Ltd (ASX: WOW) shares pay dividends?
Indeed, it does. In fact, Woolworths is due to pay out its financial year 2022 interim dividend next month.
As of Monday's close, the Woolworths share price is $36.86.
That gives the company a trailing dividend yield (considering its not-yet-paid an interim dividend and its full year dividend) of 2.55%.
Let's take a closer look at Woolworths' payouts and its upcoming interim dividend.
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All the details on Woolworths' upcoming dividend
Woolworths is set to hand investors its 39 cent fully franked interim dividend on 14 April.
Unfortunately, market watchers have missed their chance to buy into the upcoming Woolies dividend.
The company traded ex-dividend earlier this month. That means the interim dividend will be going to whoever held Woolworths shares as of 3 March.
While investors are likely looking forward to the payout now, they might have been disappointed when first hearing of it last month.
That's because the 39-cent dividend is 26.4% lower than the company's financial year 2021 interim dividend of 53 cents per share.
Though, eagle eyed market watchers might have seen the writing on the wall prior to the company announcing the smaller payout.
Dividends made to shareholders are normally made up of part of a company's profits for a given period. Woolworths flagged it was facing financial challenges during the first half of financial year 2022 back in December.
For the first half, the supermarket giant forked out an additional $239 million of costs born from the COVID-19 pandemic.
That, in turn, drove its net profit after tax to $795 million – 6.5% less than it reported for the first half of financial year 2021. In turn, that saw the company drop its dividend.
Its upcoming payout is also the smallest dividend the supermarket has given shareholders since 2017.
Though, many probably still consider Woolworths to be a strong dividend share. It has consistently paid out dividends since 1993.
