ARM Holdings plc (ADR) (ARMH), and Three FTSE 100 Shares Going Ex-Dividend Next Week

LONDON — Next week is quite a busy one for FTSE 100 ex-dividend dates, and it pays to plan ahead if you want to buy in time to be eligible for a firm’s payment — or if you’re hoping for a bargain price drop when the time has passed.

The FTSE 100’s current average dividend yield is around 3.1%, and we have three companies coming up next week that are well spread around that figure. The following three will go ex-dividend on Wednesday, April 17:

BAE (OTCBB:BAESY)
BAE Systems will go ex-dividend on Wednesday with respect to its final dividend of 11.7 pence per share, as announced on Feb. 21. Although underlying earnings per share fell a little, to 38.9 pence from the previous year’s 39.7 pence, the firm lifted its total payment by 4% to 19.5 pence per share and reiterated its policy of maintaining future dividends at a sustainable cover of around two times underlying earnings.

The total dividend of 19.5 pence per share represents a yield of 5% on the current share price of 385 pence, with the final payment alone providing 3%.

ARM
Wednesday is ex-dividend day for ARM Holdings plc (ADR) (NASDAQ:ARMH), too. The chip designer is not exactly known as a cash cow when it comes to dividends, but it did announce a 2.83 pence-per-share final dividend on Feb. 5 for an annual total of 4.5 pence. Even if that does only provide a yield of half a percent on today’s share price of 879 pence, it is up 29% on the previous year.

A further rise of around 15%, to about 5.2 pence per share, is currently forecast for the year to Dec. 2013.

Fresnillo
And somewhere in between BAE and ARM Holdings plc (ADR) (NASDAQ:ARMH) in terms of yield comes gold and silver miner Fresnillo, also with the same ex-dividend date. This time, it relates to a final dividend of 42.4 cents per share. Added to September’s interim payment of 15.5 cents, that brings the total for the year to 57.9 cents per share — and that’s a yield of around 2.8% on today’s share price of 1,335 pence, at current exchange rates.

That share price has slumped, though, having lost a third of its value since last November’s levels of around the 2,000 pence mark.

The article 3 FTSE 100 Shares Going Ex-Dividend Next Week originally appeared on Fool.com.

Alan Oscroft does not own any shares mentioned in this article, and neither does The Motley Fool.

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