Stock dividends are being cut as companies emphasize preserving cash

Intel, the world’s largest maker of laptop processors, this week slashed its dividend cost to the bottom stage in 16 years in an effort to protect money and assist flip round its enterprise. Hanesbrands Inc., a century-old attire maker, earlier this month eradicated the quarterly dividend it began paying practically a decade in the past. VF Corp., which owns Vans, The North Face and different manufacturers, additionally reduce its dividend in latest weeks as it really works to scale back its debt burden. 

“The board and I didn’t take this choice calmly,” Intel Chief Govt Officer Pat Gelsinger mentioned Wednesday. 

Extra corporations could comply with within the face of slowing earnings and subsequently greater leverage. Executives have been pressured to fastidiously handle each prices and debt to keep up free money movement as contemporary capital is dearer beneath the Federal Reserve’s new charges regime.

Retailers particularly face declining earnings, as persistent inflation additionally erodes customers’ willingness to spend.

To date this yr, as many as 17 corporations within the Dow Jones US Complete Inventory Market Index reduce their dividends, in line with information compiled by Bloomberg. Nonetheless, it isn’t a call that executives make simply, as it may possibly scare off traders and dent corporations’ share costs. 

Intel pointed to a latest assertion and its earnings launch and declined to remark additional. VF and Hanesbrands declined to remark. 

Shedding an Edge

Intel, as soon as the trade chief in chips, is scuffling with a stoop in private laptop gross sales that generate the majority of its revenues. Scores corporations Moody’s Traders Service, S&P World Scores and Fitch Scores have all downgraded Intel’s debt. 

Slowing IT spending and continued market share losses will probably put strain on the corporate’s profitability and credit score metrics, analysts at Moody’s mentioned. Along with the dividend reduce, Intel is eliminating jobs, slashing administration pay and slowing spending on new crops to avoid wasting as a lot as $10 billion by the tip of 2025. 

Nonetheless, Intel holds money of greater than $28 billion, Chief Monetary Officer David Zinsner mentioned this week. Complete debt stands at round $50 billion after the corporate offered $11 billion in bonds earlier this month. 

Simpler to Borrow

At Hanesbrands, gross sales fell 16% to $1.47 billion within the fourth quarter attributable to slower shopper spending and decrease orders from retailers, the corporate mentioned. That, mixed with greater financing prices and an upcoming maturity of over a $1 billion in 2024, left the corporate with restricted choices amid unfavorable free money movement of $471 million for 2022, in contrast with $554 million within the yr earlier. 

Reducing the dividend and different financial savings measures will generate roughly $500 million in whole working money movement in 2023, in line with the corporate. 

Hanesbrands this month refinanced debt that might have come due subsequent yr with high-yield bond and leveraged mortgage choices. For each offers, pricing tightened in Hanesbrands’ favor, indicating sturdy demand from traders. 

Nixing the dividend earlier this month probably resulted in decrease borrowing prices for Hanesbrands, mentioned John McClain, portfolio supervisor at Brandywine World Funding Administration, which owns bonds and loans tied to the corporate. “This was the proper message to ship to {the marketplace} as a potential borrower in want of an inexpensive quantity of capital,” he mentioned. 

The refinancing deal loosened covenants associated to leverage whereas capping dividend payouts and limiting buybacks, in line with Amanda O’Neill, a credit score analyst at S&P. “They’re fairly constrained from a capital allocation standpoint beneath this modification to loosen their covenants,” O’Neill mentioned. The rankings agency just lately downgraded the corporate one notch to BB- with a unfavorable outlook.

Hanesbrands final month mentioned Chief Monetary Officer Michael Dastugue would resign for household causes. Scott Lewis, its chief accounting officer and controller, will function interim CFO whereas Hanesbrands is trying to find a everlasting alternative.

Shock Expense

At VF, the dividend reduce is a part of an effort to keep up its investment-grade ranking, in line with S&P. The corporate’s earnings have suffered attributable to decrease gross sales for Vans and Covid-19 lockdowns in China.

VF is concentrating on a leverage ratio of two.5 occasions gross debt to adjusted earnings earlier than curiosity, tax, depreciation and amortization, the corporate mentioned throughout its most up-to-date earnings name. That compares to about 4.5 occasions this month, in line with the corporate.

Its debt originated partly from “aggressive” acquisitions of manufacturers massive and small, together with a $2.1 billion deal for streetwear model Supreme in 2020, mentioned Mike Campellone, an analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence. 

Then, the corporate was pressured to tackle one other $1 billion in debt to fund a tax settlement associated to its acquisition of Timberland in 2011. That bloated its leverage, which is above the vary it should preserve at its present ranking stage and its personal publicly said goal of two.5, in line with S&P. 

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