Business

Best Buy hikes shareholder dividend, offers one-time payment

Posted March 03, 2015 12:00 am

Associated Press

Shares of Best Buy jumped Tuesday after it announced plans to hike its quarterly dividend 21 percent and give shareholders an additional one-time payment. The nation's largest consumer electronics chain also reported a better-than-expected, fourth-quarter profit.

The Minneapolis-based company said it will raise its cash dividend to 23 cents per share from 19 cents, and it will pay shareholders a dividend of 51 cents per share culled from the proceeds of some legal settlements over the price of liquid crystal displays, or LCDs, sold in the United States.

The settlements stem from litigation against technology makers over claims that they conspired to fix LCD prices. LCD technology is used in consumer electronics like flat-panel TVs, computers, and phones.

Best Buy will pay the special cash dividend and the increased regular quarterly payout on April 14 to shareholders of record at the close of business on March 24.

Best Buy Co. Inc. also said Tuesday that its net income jumped 77 percent to $519 million, or $1.46 per share, for the quarter that ended Jan. 31. Earnings, adjusted for one-time gains and costs, came to $1.48 per share.

That topped Wall Street expectations. The average estimate of analysts surveyed by Zacks Investment Research was for earnings of $1.36 per share.

The retailer posted revenue of $14.21 billion in the period, which missed Street forecasts. Analysts expected $14.41 billion, according to Zacks.

Company shares were up about 2.6 percent, or $1.01, to $39.64 about 45 minutes before markets opened Tuesday. The stock had fallen roughly 1 percent since the beginning of the year, as of Monday's market close, while the Standard & Poor's 500 index has increased almost 3 percent.

Best Buy shares have climbed more than 45 percent in the last 12 months.

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Elements of this story were generated by Automated Insights (http://automatedinsights.com/ap) using data from Zacks Investment Research. Access a Zacks stock report on BBY at http://www.zacks.com/ap/BBY

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