3 Bonus, 4,500% Payout: Tata's 56-Year-Old IT Giant Declares Final Dividend Of Rs 28/Share; How To Be Eligible

One of the biggest dividends in the IT sector has been announced by Tata Group-backed 56-year-old IT giant, Tata Consultancy Services. TCS on April 12th declared the final dividend for FY24, to the tune of Rs 28 per share. Ex-dividend, record, and payment dates will be declared in due course.

In its regulatory filing, TCS said, "We would like to inform you that at the Board Meeting held today, the Directors have recommended a Final Dividend of Rs 28 per Equity Share of Rs 1 each of the Company which shall be paid/dispatched on the fourth day from the conclusion of the 29th Annual General Meeting, subject to the approval of the shareholders of the Company."

On BSE, TCS share price ended at Rs 4,000.30 apiece, down by 0.5% with a market cap of Rs 14,47,343.55 crore. On the current market price, TCS has a dividend yield of 2.9%.

Additionally, in Q4FY24, TCS posted a consolidated PAT of Rs 12,434 crore, attributable to owners of the company, registering a growth of 9.1% YoY. Sequentially, the growth in the bottom line came in at 12.44%. That being said, TCS beats street estimates in Q4 earnings.

In the quarter, consolidated revenue from operations stood at Rs 61,237 crore in Q4FY24, rising by 3.51% from Rs 59,162 crore in the same quarter a year ago. While revenue was up by 1.08% from Rs 60,583 crore in Q3FY24. In constant current, revenue growth was at 2.2% year-on-year in Q4FY24.

The final dividend's record date, ex-dividend date, and payment date will be announced soon. There are two types of dividend namely interim and final. Generally, the final dividend is higher than the interim.

Earlier, TCS paid a whopping 4,500% dividend aggregating to Rs 45 per share for FY24 in a series of interims. The first interim and second interim dividends were Rs 9 per share for which TCS turned ex-dividend in June and September 2023. While TCS also paid a third interim dividend of Rs 9 per share along with a special dividend of Rs 18 per share for which it turned ex-dividend in January 2024.

In the previous fiscal, TCS paid dividends of a whopping 11,500% valuing Rs 115 per share.

How To Be Eligible?

To be eligible for TCS dividends, as an investor, you need to ensure you don't miss out on key important dates when they're announced. These are:

1. Declaration Date: Date of approval of Dividend Rate (per share) by the Board of Directors of the Company. Currently, April 12th is the declaration date of the latest dividend by TCS.

2. Record Date: Proposed by the Board of Directors to determine the name of the eligible shareholders for the dividend. All eligible shareholders with their names in the list at the end of the Record Date will be eligible to receive dividends. A minimum gap of 5 clear working days is needed between the Declaration Date and the Record Date. So one can expect a dividend record date by TCS anytime soon.

3. Ex-Dividend Date: On this day the price of the equity share of the company gets adjusted for the dividend payout. Since the implementation of the T+1 settlement type for stocks on BSE and NSE, the ex-dividend date is the same as the record date for listed companies including TCS, until and unless the record date falls on a weekend or holiday when markets are closed. So automatically, the ex-dividend date will fall a day before the record date on holidays.

5. Payment Date/ Issue Date: Payment of dividend is to be completed within 30 days of its approval. Eligible shareholders receive the dividend amount before this date.

Tata's TCS is among the dividend king stocks. As per Trendlyne data, TCS has delivered up to 83 dividends since October 2004 after its listing in the same year. Also, TCS is among the bonus shares rewards.

So far, TCS has paid 3 bonuses. The first bonus issue of 1:1 each was in July 2006, followed by another 1:1 bonus issue in June 2009, and later on another 1:1 bonus issue in June 2018.

TCS also carried a buyback of Rs 17,000 crore at Rs 4,150 per piece in November last year. This would be the fifth buyback by TCS in the last six years. Before this, TCS carried a buyback of Rs 18,000 crore in 2022.