Home Capital revives dividend for first time since February 2017
BNN Bloomberg
For the first time in half a decade, Home Capital Group Inc. is about to pay a dividend.
For the first time in half a decade, Home Capital Group Inc. is about to pay a dividend.
The mortgage lender said in a release Thursday morning that shareholders of record as of March 15 will receive a payment of 15 cents per common share at the end of next month.
That will be the first dividend paid by the company since February of 2017, which was in the midst of a crisis at the company amid a run on deposits that was triggered by a regulatory probe into its mortgage underwriting practices. That probe led to firing of its then-chief executive and a flurry of activity to shore up its finances, which culminated with an investment by Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc.
Separately, Home Capital said on Thursday its single-family mortgage originations rose to $2.27 billion in the fourth quarter, compared to $2.01 billion in the third quarter.
The company’s net income slipped to $52.7 million in the fourth quarter from $55.3 million a year earlier. On an adjusted basis, it earned $1.06 per share; analysts, on average, were expecting $1.08 in adjusted per-share profit. Home Capital said it set aside $1 million in the most recent quarter for loans that could go bad. By contrast, in the fourth quarter of 2020, it released $7.7 million from its loan loss provisions.
“Today’s announcement of a dividend demonstrates the confidence that the board and management have in the resilience of our business model and in our ability to generate increasing value for shareholders,” said Home Capital President and Chief Executive Yousry Bissada in a release.
