Nucor announces biggest dividend hike since 2007

Nucor has raised its dividend 49 years in a row © dividendtrackrecords.com

Dividend Aristocrat and steel company Nucor (symbol: NUE) has just announced a massive dividend increase in 2021. The best performing Aristocrat YTD will pay shareholders 23.5 percent more dividend with a new quarterly rate of 50 cents per share.

The Nucor dividend hike just announced is super impressive because the company had the lowest average dividend growth amongst all Dividend Aristocrats the last couple of years with 0.6 percent increases announced in both 2020 and 2019. Nucor is the best performing Aristocrat in 2021.

The increased Nucor cash dividend of $0.50 per share is payable on February 11, 2022 to stockholders of record on December 31, 2021 and is Nucor's 195th consecutive quarterly cash dividend.  Nucor has increased its regular, or base, dividend for 49 consecutive years – every year since it first began paying dividends in 1973.

A new $2.00 per share annual dividend for Nucor will yield 1.9% at the closing stock price of $107.56 prior to the dividend hike announcement. Nucor pays shareholders an estimated $476 million in dividends annually based on calculations by dividendtrackrecords.com.

Nucor also announced that it will buy back up to $4.00 billion of the company's outstanding common stock.  This new authorization replaces the previously authorized $3.00 billion repurchase program.

Nucor and its affiliates are manufacturers of steel and steel products, with operating facilities in the United States, Canada and Mexico. Products produced include: carbon and alloy steel -- in bars, beams, sheet and plate; hollow structural section tubing; electrical conduit; steel racking; steel piling; steel joists and joist girders; steel deck; fabricated concrete reinforcing steel; cold finished steel; precision castings; steel fasteners; metal building systems; insulated metal panels; steel grating; and wire and wire mesh. Nucor, through The David J. Joseph Company, also brokers ferrous and nonferrous metals, pig iron and hot briquetted iron / direct reduced iron; supplies ferro-alloys; and processes ferrous and nonferrous scrap. Nucor is North America's largest recycler.