Bristol-Myers Squibb hikes dividend by 10.2%

Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMY) will raise its dividend by 10.2 percent to 54 cents per share quarterly. This comes after a 8.9 percent hike to $0.49 per share announced by BMY in 2021. The pharmaceutical company has now raised its dividend for 14 consecutive years.

The next quarterly BMY dividend of 54 cents will be payable on February 1, 2022 to stockholders of record at the close of business on January 7, 2022. A new indicated annual dividend rate of $2.16 per share yields 3.6% at a stock price of $60.

Bristol-Myers Squibb now pays an estimated $4.79 billion in dividends to shareholders annually. Dividend growth has been picking up in the last three years, lifting the five year average annualized dividend growth rate to 6.7 percent if we include the 2021 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.