Tata Consultancy Services has reported a third interim dividend of Rs 8 per share and a special dividend of Rs 67 per share. India’s largest software exporter had earlier paid interim dividends of Rs 8 per share each in September and July, taking its year-to-date total dividend payout to Rs 33,297 crore.
Nomura India noted that TCS has a policy of returning 80-100 per cent of free cash flow to shareholders, according to management. But total payout of free cash flow to shareholders year-to-date is 110 per cent it said.
The third interim dividend and the special dividend, which was announced by TCS alongside with its quarterly earnings, would be paid on February 3. The shares dividend would be paid to those shareholders, whose names will appear on the register of members of the company or in the records of the depositories as beneficial owners of the shares as on January 17, the record date.
Nirmal Bang Institutional Equities in a note said given the large payout, investors may unlikely to see any share buy back in the near future. TCS paid a total dividend of Rs 22 per share. Nirmal Bang sees FY23’s total dividend at Rs 99 per share, FY24’s at Rs 105 per share and FY25’s at Rs 120 per share.
Dividend yield is seen risnig from 1.3 per cent in FY22 to 3 per cent in FY23 and to 3.2 per cent in FY24.
Nuvama Institutional Equities sees dividend yield for FY23 at 3.5 per cent. It sees FY24 dividend yield at 2 per cent.
The IT major on Monday reported a 11 per cent year-on-year (YoY) rise in profit at Rs 10,846 crore for the December quarter on a 19.10 per cent YoY jump in net sales at Rs 58,229 crore. On constant currency terms, revenues were up 13.5 per cent YoY.
Operating margin for the quarter stood at 24.5 per cent, down 0.5 per cent YoY. Order book for the quarter stood at $7.8 billion, the major said, adding that book-to-bill was at 1.1 times.
TCS said its net cash from operations came in at Rs 11,154 crore ie 102.8 per cent of net income. Net headcount declined 2,197 while the total workforce strength stood at 6,13,974, TCS said.
By 2 pm, the TCS stock recovered ome morning losses and was trading at Rs 3275, down 1.35 per cent.
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