ITC Stock Turns Ex-Dividend: Shares of the cigarettes-to-hotels conglomerate ITC dipped 2 per cent in the morning session on February 15 as they have turned ex-dividend on an interim dividend for the current financial year 2022-23. The stock was trading 2.02% lower at Rs 378.65 apiece at 9:27 am in Wednesday’s intraday trade.
ITC has declared an interim dividend of Rs 6 per share for the financial year 2022-23. In the past 12 months, ITC has declared an equity dividend amounting to Rs 6.25 per share. At the current stock levels, this results in a dividend yield of 1.66 per cent.
ITC informed about the interim dividend citing, “The Board of Directors of the Company at the meeting held today, i.e. 3rd February, 2023 – (a) declared Interim Dividend of Rs. 6/- per Ordinary Share of Re. 1/- each for the financial year ending on 31st March, 2023; such Dividend will be paid between Friday, 3rd March, 2023 and Sunday, 5th March, 2023 to those Members entitled thereto. (b) fixed Wednesday, 15th February, 2023 as the Record Date for the purpose of determining entitlement of the Members for such Interim Dividend.”
The dividend will be paid between March 3 and March 5, the company said.
After trading rangebound over the past few years, ITC took off last year, delivering 74 per cent returns to investors. So far this year, it has been among the top Nifty performers, with 15 per cent returns year-to-date.
In past one month, the stock has zoomed 17 per cent, as compared to less than 1 per cent rise in the S&P BSE Sensex. The brokerages believe that the proposed tax hike on cigarette in the Union Budget 2023 is not very high and would be easily passed on through small price increases.
The cigarette-to-hotel conglomerate reported a 21 per cent year-on-year (YoY) rise in net profit for the quarter ended December to Rs 5,031 crore. Revenue from operations, net of excise duty, rose a meagre 2.3 per cent on year to Rs 16,226 crore and trailed estimates of Rs 16,810 crore.
ITC said that the economic activity continued to gather momentum with sequential moderation in commodity inflation, even as core inflation remained elevated. However, rural demand continued to be relatively subdued, they said, while improving sequentially.
“The volume stability in taxes on cigarettes, backed by deterrent actions by enforcement agencies, continued to enable volume recovery for the legal cigarette industry from illicit trade leading to higher demand for Indian tobaccos,” the management added.
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