Are you a shareholder of Wesfarmers Ltd (ASX: WES)? Congratulations, it's payday for you. Wesfarmers, one of the oldest blue-chip shares on the S&P/ASX 200 Index (ASX: XJO), is paying out its interim dividend today.
So if you've been a shareholder for longer than its last ex-dividend date of 22 February, get ready for a new dividend coming your way.
Last month when Wesfarmers revealed its half-year earnings report for the six months ending 31 December 2021, it seems investors weren't too impressed. The company reported something of a mixed bag. Revenues, earnings, net profits after tax (NPAT), and basic earnings per share (EPS) all fell compared to the previous year.
Even the company's interim dividend took a hit. Wesfarmers announced an 80 cents per share interim dividend, fully franked. That represented a 9.1% cut compared to the previous year's dividend.
Image source: Getty Images
Wesfarmers pays out a lowered dividend
The company mostly blamed this performance on the pandemic and associated lockdowns during the second half of last year, as well as staffing shortages and supply chain issues. On the day of the earnings announcement, the Wesfarmers share price fell 6% at one point. Even as it stands today, Wesfarmers shares are a good 6% or so below where they were prior to these earnings coming out.
But that's all done and dusted now, and I'm sure investors are keen to receive their dividends today all the same.
Wesfarmers' last two dividends equate to $1.70 in fully-franked dividends per share. That gives Wesfarmers a trailing dividend yield of 3.32% on current pricing, or 4.74% grossed-up with the full franking.
At the time of writing, Wesfarmers is trading at $51.19 a share. That puts its year-to-date performance in 2022 so far at a loss of 14.7%. Over the past 12 months, Wesfarmers shares have gone backwards by 2%. The company last hit a 52-week high of $67.20 back in August last year, meaning the shares are down more than 22% from that high as it stands today.
At the current Wesfarmers share price, this ASX 200 blue chip has a market capitalisation of $58 billion.
