NEW YORK (GenomeWeb News) – Becton Dickinson today said that its board of directors has increased the quarterly dividend to $.37 per common share, up $.04 from the previous quarter.
Shareholders of record on Dec. 14 will be paid the dividend on Jan. 4, 2010, the firm said. BD said that the indicated annual dividend for fiscal 2010 is $1.48 per share.
In addition, BD's board authorized the repurchase of an additional 10 million common shares of the firm. This authorization is in addition to the roughly 7.6 million shares that remained available at Sept. 30 under a 10 million share repurchase authorization from November 2008.
As of Sep. 30, BD had approximately 237 million common shares outstanding.