It's been a rather sad end to the trading week for the NIB Holdings Limited (ASX: NHF) share price so far this Friday. At the time of writing, NIB shares have endured a 0.99% drop to $8 a share.
That stands in contrast to the broader S&P/ASX 200 Index (ASX: XJO). The ASX 200 has currently banked a tentative gain of 0.08% to around 6,850 points.
It's unclear what is causing investors to have some trepidation about NIB shares as we end the trading week today. But there's one thing we know for sure. The NIB share price is set for another tough day next Monday.
How can we know this? Well, that's when NIB is scheduled to trade ex-dividend for its upcoming final dividend payment.
The NIB dividend is coming, but you'll have to be quick
NIB announced its full-year earnings report for FY22 last month. At the time, the health insurance giant declared a final dividend of 11 cents per share, fully franked. This was a 21.4% decline from the final dividend of 14 cents per share that the company paid out last year for FY21.
It will take NIB's full-year dividends for FY22 to 22 cents per share. That follows April's interim dividend that was also worth 11 cents per share.
Again, that's a drop from FY21's total of 24 cents per share.
But if investors want to receive this dividend, they will have to act quickly. Monday's ex-dividend date means that today is the last day an investor can buy NIB shares to become eligible for this upcoming dividend. From Monday, new shareholders will be cut off.
This is why we are almost certainly set to see NIB shares go backwards during Monday's session. No new investors will be eligible for the final dividend come Monday. As such, the value of this dividend will leave the NIB share price. That's what normally happens when an ASX share goes ex-dividend.
Investors (or those eligible, anyway) will then have to wait until 4 October to see the dividend hit their bank accounts. NIB is offering shareholders the option of participating in the company's dividend reinvestment plan (DRP) though.
So if any investors wish to receive new NIB shares in lieu of cash, they have until 7 September to make this known to the company.
At the current NIB share price, this ASX 200 insurance share has a market capitalisation of $3.67 billion, with a dividend yield of 2.75%.
