Company Expects to Continue to Return Capital to Stockholders at Substantial Levels Consistent with Annual Free Cash Flow and Borrowing Capacity
SiriusXM Anticipates Managing Leverage Consistent with Historical Levels
NEW YORK (STL.News) SiriusXM today announced that its Board of Directors declared a quarterly cash dividend of $0.0219615 per share of common stock, reflecting an increase of 50% over the previous quarter’s dividend. This regular quarterly dividend is payable in cash on November 29, 2021, to stockholders of record at the close of business on November 5, 2021.
“The substantial 50% increase in our regular quarterly dividend reflects our continued confidence in SiriusXM’s ability to generate significant free cash flow in the coming years. In addition, this increase is aimed at bringing our dividend yield more in line with the broader market and sector comparables,” said Sean Sullivan, Chief Financial Officer, SiriusXM.
“We also intend to continue to invest aggressively in our growth initiatives, including pursuing acquisitions when attractive opportunities arise. We plan to maintain financial and strategic flexibility by continuing to return capital to our stockholders at levels that reflect our annual free cash flow generation and any incremental borrowing capacity that may arise from managing leverage to be roughly consistent with historical levels,” added Sullivan.
SiriusXM first initiated a regular quarterly dividend in November 2016 at $0.01 per share per quarter, and this marks the fifth year in a row the company has increased this dividend, with the first four years seeing a 10% annual increase.
As a reminder, SiriusXM announced on July 19, 2021, that its Board of Directors had approved an additional $2 billion of common stock repurchases, taking the Company’s total authorization to $18 billion since the inception of the program in 2013. As of July 23, 2021, the company had approximately $2.7 billion of remaining authorization. In addition, shares of common stock may be purchased from time to time on the open market, according to pre-set trading plans meeting the requirements of Rule 10b5-1 under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, in privately negotiated transactions, including in accelerated stock repurchase transactions and transactions with Liberty Media and its affiliates, or otherwise. The Company will fund the repurchases through cash on hand, future cash flow from operations, and future borrowings.
The announcement of the extension of the repurchase program reflected the Board’s desire to continue to return capital to stockholders and its confidence in the long-term growth prospects of the Company’s business. SiriusXM retains sufficient capital capacity to continue making long-term investments in its programming, research and development initiatives, and overall operations, as well as to pursue strategic opportunities that may arise.