These 3 Stocks Just Announced Major Dividend Hikes

These three stocks just announced significant quarterly dividend increases that they are set to pay out soon. While they all raised dividends by a minimum of 15%, two announced raises north of 35%. That includes one company now with an indicated dividend yield above 11%. Below, I'll break down just how much each of these three firms are increasing its payments to shareholders. I'll also add other pertinent information about these stocks along the way. All dividend yield and return figures use prices as of the Feb. 14 close.

Novo Nordisk: Pharma Giant Raises Dividend by 18%

The company that started the weight loss and diabetes drug craze, Novo Nordisk A/S (NYSE: NVO), just announced a significant dividend increase. The maker of blockbuster drugs Ozempic and Wegovy is raising its next ordinary dividend payment by 18%. This gives the pharmaceutical company an approximate dividend yield of 2% for 2025. The Board of Directors will propose this increase at the company's Annual General Meeting on Mar. 27, where shareholders must approve it.

Although it has not yet been officially approved, the shareholders are very likely to do so for several reasons. First, they are likely to vote in favor of paying themselves a larger dividend. Besides having an interest in paying themselves, approving the dividend also allows Novo to continue its track record of increasing its annual dividend every year since 1993. Lastly, Novo's business is doing extremely well, even though the stock has fallen a lot lately. The company is bringing in record cash from operations, driven by its first-mover advantage in the weight loss and diabetes drug market.

There are some interesting quirks to how Novo Nordisk pays out dividends compared to other firms. First, it only pays dividends twice a year. The company pays its ordinary dividend in April, which is the much larger of the two. In August, Novo pays its interim dividend. Compared to the $0.93 ordinary dividend paid last April, the new $1.10 payment is an increase of 18% per American Depository Receipt (ADR). Note that when quoted in Danish currency, Novo describes this as a 21% increase. This difference is likely due to currency fluctuations or mechanisms within the ADR. That is a solid bump up. Pending approval, it will be payable on Apr. 8 to shareholders of record on Mar. 31.

AllianceBernstein: Dividend Yield Gets Boosted to Over 10%

The next stock, AllianceBernstein (NYSE: AB), just raised its already large dividend even higher. The 36% increase results in the stock now having an indicated dividend yield of 11.3%. The $1.05 dividend will be payable on Mar. 13 to shareholders of record on Feb. 18.

AllianceBernstein is a financial services firm that works in many different parts of the asset management industry. This includes creating investment products for both institutional and retail investors. It also has a significant private wealth management arm and provides research and market intelligence services. The company has made big strides to increase the size of its private market and alternative investment management platforms. It sees this as an important way to drive margin expansion. It looks to increase its private markets revenue as a percentage of total asset management revenue to over 20% by 2027. In 2017, the figure was barely over 2%.

Royal Caribbean: Back to Returning Capital

Like Alliance Bernstein, Royal Caribbean Cruises (NYSE: RCL) also just announced a 36% dividend increase. However, despite the similar increase, its overall dividend yield is on the other end of the spectrum. The $0.75 per share dividend will be payable on Apr. 4 to shareholders of record at the close of business on Mar. 7. The travel company has been inconsistent in terms of paying out dividends. The company slowly increased its dividend from the early 2010s to 2019. However, the COVID pandemic caused massive issues at the firm, causing it to halt dividend payments until 2024.

Although this makes it somewhat hard to forecast the company's indicated dividend yield, I'll simply increase the total 2024 dividend by 36%. That gives the stock a dividend yield of 0.5%. It's not anything to get excited about, but at least the company is now getting back to being able to make payments and increase them. In addition to its dividend, the firm also announced a share repurchase program valued at $1 billion. This equates to over 1% of the company's market capitalization.

Companies Mentioned in This Article: