Banco Santander’s board of directors announced on Monday that it will vote at the next general shareholders’ meeting, scheduled for 22 March 2024, on a final cash dividend charged to 2023 of €0.095 per share. Thus, the total cash payment from last year’s accounts will be 17.60 cents, an increase of approximately 50% compared to the remuneration of the previous period. In addition, the bank will launch a share buyback of approximately €1.5 billion, which will start on Tuesday, 20 February. The reception on the stock market has been good and its shares have risen by 2.5%. At the close, it ended with a rise of 1.76%.
According to the schedule, the cash dividend will be paid on 2 May 2024 and the total shareholder remuneration from the 2023 results will amount to more than €5.5 billion, which means an equivalent yield of approximately 10%. Once the new share buyback is completed in June, Santander will have repurchased approximately 11% of its outstanding shares since 2021.
With these payments, the payout (the proportion of profits distributed to shareholders) increases from 40% to 50% of attributable profit, in line with the new shareholder remuneration policy announced at Investor Day last week.
