Bristol-Myers Squibb hikes dividend by 8.9%

Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMY) will raise its dividend by 8.9 percent to $0.49 per share in 2021. This comes after a 9.8 percent hike to $0.45 quarterly announced by the pharmaceutical company last year. This is the second biggest dividend increase by BMY since 2008. The pharmaceutical company completed the acquisition of biotech company Celgene last year and has now raised its dividend for 13 consecutive years.

The next quarterly dividend will be payable on February 1, 2021 to stockholders of record at the close of business on January 4, 2021. A new indicated annual dividend rate of $1.96 per share yields 3.1% at a stock price of $63.12.

Bristol-Myers Squibb now pays an estimated $4.4 billion in dividends to shareholders annually. Dividend growth has been picking up in the last two years, lifting the five year average annualized dividend growth rate to 5.2 percent if we include the 2020 dividend hike just announced.

Bristol-Myers Squibb Company is is a global specialty biopharmaceutical company.  Bristol-Myers is developing new medicines in the following core therapeutic areas: oncology with a priority in certain tumor types; immunoscience with priorities in psoriasis, lupus, RA and inflammatory bowel disease;  cardiovascular with a priority in heart disease and; fibrotic disease with priorities in lung and liver. The company's top drugs include Opdivo (infused biologic immuno-oncology treatment) and Eliquis (anticoagulation). In late 2019 Bristol-Myers completed the acquisition of biopharmaceutical company Celgene Corp., combining two companies with valuable overlap in the oncology, immunology, and inflammation therapeutic areas.