Cisco's Dividend Boost Isn't Enough

Cisco's (NASDAQ: CSCO) struggles aren't over yet. The networking giant saw its revenue shrink by 8% last quarter, and management sees the sales weakness persisting into this year. However, shareholders also got a bit of good news in Cisco's quarterly report: The company boosted its dividend by 12% to an annual pace of more than $1 billion.

Demitrios Kalogeropoulos argues that, as impressive as it sounds, that dividend boost isn't enough to keep Cisco's payout on pace with other Dow giants like General Electric (NYSE: GE) and IBM (NYSE: IBM), which dedicated significantly more cash last year toward dividend payments. Cisco's payout ratio also lags the overall market and could stand to rise closer to GE's 55%, he says, which could happen through a scaling-back of Cisco's aggressive spending on share repurchases.

Source: Motley Fool

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