It's no doubt one of the best days in WAM Capital Limited (ASX: WAM) investors' calendars today. That's because shareholders of this popular ASX listed investment company (LIC) are scheduled to receive their latest dividend payment today.
WAM Capital is amongst the larger LICs on the ASX. It was founded back in 1999 and today boasts a market capitalisation of $1.83 billion – helped by the generous premium the company trades at over its net tangible assets (NTA).
To illustrate, as of 30 September, WAM Capital had an NTA per share of $1.41. But today it trades at a share price of $1.69. That's despite a five-year share price loss of almost 30%.
But most of WAM Capital's investors probably don't buy this LIC for share price appreciation. Rather, WAM Capital is famous for its large and fully franked dividend yields.
What's WAM Capital's latest dividend worth?
As we already mentioned, the LIC's latest dividend payment is heading to investors' bank accounts today. It is a payment of 7.75 cents per share. That's the same dividend that WAM Capital investors have received every six months for four years now.
But shareholders would have had to own WAM Capital shares before the company's ex-dividend date of 17 October to be eligible to receive this latest payment.
Together with the last interim dividend of the same value, WAM Capital has now paid out a total of 15.5 cents per share over the past 12 months. On the current share price, this gives the LIC a trailing dividend yield of 9.17%. That grosses up to a hefty 13.1% with the full franking.
As of 30 September, the WAM Capital investment portfolio has delivered an average of 5% per annum (including dividend returns). This underperformed the benchmark S&P/ASX All Ordinaries Accumulation Index, which returned 7.1%. However, WAM Capital's performance is calculated before the management fee of 1% per annum.
