Mattel Hikes Dividend, Share Repurchases
NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Mattel (MAT) has raised its annual dividend for 2010 to 83 cents a share, from a 2009 dividend of 75 cents.
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The 2010 dividend is payable on Dec. 16 to shareholders of record on Dec. 3.
Mattel also said that it plans to begin paying quarterly rather than annual dividends starting in fiscal year 2011. The company plans to declare its quarterly dividends during quarterly earnings announcements.
Furthermore, Mattel has increased its share repurchase program by $500 million. The repurchases will take place from time to time depending on market conditions.
Under the share repurchase program, Mattel has repurchased about 117 million shares of common stock for about $2.3 billion so far. The program is part of a broader capital and investment plan announced in Feb. 2003.
A regulatory filing published on Monday shows that billionaire
Carl Icahn's hedge fund Icahn Capital
bought 2.4 million shares of Mattel and 5 million shares of
Masco
(MAS)
in the third quarter. During the quarter, he also unloaded the rest of his shares in
Yahoo!
(YHOO)
and
Wendy's Arby's
TheStreet Recommends
(WEN)
. In 2008, Icahn waged a proxy battle against Yahoo! after the company declined
Microsoft's
(MSFT)
buyout offer of up to $47.5 billion; he backed down after obtaining three seats on Yahoo's board.
-- Written by Andrea Tse in New York.
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