RPM International Inc. today announced at its annual meeting of stockholders that its board of directors declared a regular quarterly cash dividend of $0.24 per share, payable on October 31, 2013, to stockholders of record as of October 21, 2013. This payment represents a 6.7 percent increase over the $0.225 quarterly cash dividend paid at this time last year.
This action marks RPM’s 40th consecutive year of increased cash dividends paid to its stockholders, which places RPM in an elite category of less than half of 1 percent of all 19,000 publicly-traded U.S. companies. Only 47 other companies, besides RPM, have consecutively paid an increasing annual dividend for this period of time or longer, according to the 2013 edition of the Mergent Handbook of Dividend Achievers. At a share price of $36.50, RPM's dividend yield would be 2.6 percent.
“With a dividend yield of nearly 3 percent and an appreciating stock price driven by a growing business, RPM is an attractive investment for both individual and institutional investors,” stated chairman and chief executive officer Frank C. Sullivan. “RPM’s total return to shareholders, comprised of share price appreciation plus dividends reinvested, has outpaced the S&P 500 by 87 percent over the past 10 years and by 27 percent over the past five years, for the periods ended May 31, 2013. We are big believers in a growing cash dividend as an important element of driving value for long-term stockholders.”
At the annual meeting, RPM re-elected four directors to serve in Class I with terms expiring at the annual stockholders meeting in 2016. They include Frank C. Sullivan, chairman and chief executive officer of RPM International Inc.; Thomas C. Sullivan, chairman emeritus and retired chief executive officer of RPM International Inc.; David A. Daberko, retired chairman and chief executive officer of National City Corporation (now part of PNC Financial Services Group, Inc.); and Craig S. Morford, chief legal and compliance officer of Cardinal Health, Inc.
