Dividend Policy Of Indian Corporate Firms

Y Subba Reddy∗

Introduction
Starting with the seminal work of Lintner (1956), several studies have proposed various theories in
explaining the issue of why companies pay dividends. While many earlier studies point out the tax-
preference theory, more recent studies emphasize signaling and agency cost rationale of dividend
payments. From the practitioners’ viewpoint, dividend policy1 of a firm has implications for
investors, managers and lenders and other stakeholders. For investors, dividends – whether
declared today or accumulated and provided at a later date - are not only a means of regular
income2, but also an important input in valuation of a firm.
Similarly, managers’flexibility to invest in projects is also dependent on the amount of dividend
that they can offer to shareholders as more dividends may mean fewer funds available for
investment. Lenders may also have interest in the amount of dividend a firm declares, as more the
dividend paid less would be the amount available for servicing and redemption of their claims.
However, in a perfect world as Miller and Modigliani (1961) have shown, investors may be
indifferent about the amount of dividend as it has no influence on the value of a firm. Any investor
can create a ‘home made dividend’if required or can invest the proceeds of a dividend payment in
additional shares as and when a company makes dividend payment. Similarly, managers may be
indifferent as funds would be available or could be raised with out any flotation costs for all
positive net present value projects.
But in reality, dividends may matter, particularly in the context of differential tax treatment of
dividends and capital gains. Very often dividends are taxed at a higher rate compared to capital
gains. This implies that dividends may have negative consequences for investors3. Similarly, cost of
raising funds is not insignificant and may well lead to lower payout, particularly when positive net
present value projects are available. Apart from flotation costs, information asymmetry between
managers and outside investors may also have implications for dividend policy.
Information asymmetry between agents (managers) and principals (outside shareholders) may
also lead to agency cost (Jensen and Meckling, 1976). The presence of information asymmetry may
also mean that managers need to signal their ability to generate higher earnings in future with the
help of high dividend payouts (Bhattacharya, 1979, John and Williams 1985, and Miller and Rock,
1985). However, the credibility of signals depends on the cost of signaling – the cost being loss of
financial flexibility. High payout results in reduction of free cash flow when in fact the firm needs
more funds to pursue high growth opportunities.

∗
Asst. Professor, Institute of Financial Management and Research. The views expressed and the approach suggested in
this paper are of the author and not necessarily of NSE.
1
Brealey (1992) poses the dividend policy decision as “What is the effect of a change in cash dividends, given the
firm’s capital-budgeting and borrowing decisions?” In other words, he looks at dividend policy in isolation and not
as a by-product of other corporate fin30262222
ancial decisions.
2
Lintner (1956) finds that firms pay regular and predictable dividends to investors, where as the earnings of
corporate firms could be erratic. This implies that shareholders prefer smoothened dividend income.
3
Black (1976) notes that in the presence of taxes, investors “prefer smaller dividends or no dividends at all”.

1
 One of the striking aspects that have been noticed in recent periods is the lower dividend paid
by corporate firms in the US as observed by Fama and French (2001). They attribute the decline to
changing firm characteristics of size, earnings and growth.
In the Indian context, various studies conducted to analyse the dividend payment pattern of
corporate firms have given out various results. Mahapatra and Sahu (1993) found that cash flow is
a major determinant of dividend followed by net earnings, Bhat and Pandey (1994) found that
managers perceive current earnings as the most significant factor. Narasimhan and Vijayalaksmi
(2002) found that there is no influence of insider ownership on dividend behaviour of firms.
However, from the above Indian studies, it is still not clear as to what is the dividend payment
pattern of firms in India and why do they initiate and omit dividend payments or reduce or
increase dividend payments. Hence it is proposed to analyze the dividend payout of firms in India
and analyze the dividend initiations and omissions and other changes in dividends and the signals
that these events convey.

Database and Methodology

The present study examines the dividend behavior of Indian corporate firms over the period 1990-
01 for all companies that are listed for trading on one of the two major exchanges namely National
Stock Exchange (NSE) and Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) during the period 1989-90 to 2000-01.
To analyze the trends in dividend payment pattern, number of companies paying dividend as
percentage of total firms, average dividend paid, dividend per share, payout ratio, and dividend
yield are computed for the period 1990 to 2001. Further, the entire sample is categorized into
payers and non-payers to examine the trends in dividends across different subgroups. Payers are
those firms that have paid dividend in the current year, where as non-payers have not paid
dividend in the current year.
To analyze signaling hypothesis, consistent with Healey and Palepu, earnings patterns of firms
initiating and omitting dividend for 3 years before the year of event and 3 years after event are
examined. For this part of the analysis, a firm is classified as initiator if it has paid dividend in the
current year but has not paid dividends for the preceding 3 years. Similarly a firm is categorized as
omission firm, if the firm has not currently paid dividend but has paid dividend in the preceding
three years.
Analysis pertaining to initiations and omissions only cover a particular sample of extreme events
and excludes firms not having a dividend track record of less than 3 years. In order to cover other
dividend events like dividend reductions and increases in the following we arrive at yet another
sample. To analyze the relationship between dividends and losses a sample is drawn with firms
having consistent profitability and dividend track records during 1990–95 and who have earnings
and dividend information for the period 1996–01. The importance of annual losses on dividend
reductions and annual dividend omissions has been analyzed with the help of logit analysis.
Similarly to examine the influence of past and future levels of earnings logit analysis has been
employed on the subset for event years 1997 and 1998.

Findings of Study
Analysis of dividend trends for a large sample of stocks traded on the NSE and BSE indicate that
the percentage of companies paying dividends has declined from 60.5 percent in 1990 to 32.1
percent in 2001 and that only a few firms have consistently paid the same levels of dividends
(Table 1, and Figure 1). Of the payers, regular payers have consistently paid higher payout as well

2
as higher average dividend compared to that of current payers (Figure 2). Initiators have always
paid higher levels of dividend yield compared to that of other payers. Further, smaller indices
appear to have higher dividends compared to that of larger indices. Industry trends indicate that
firms in the electricity, mining and diversified industries have paid higher dividends where as textile
companies have paid less dividends (Table 2).

Table 1 Figure 1
Trend in Dividend Payments During 1990-2001
Total Dividend Behaviour of Indian Corporate Firms During
Not Paid
Year Paid Dividend Number 1990 - 2001 (in %)
Dividend
of Firms
No. % No. % 80%
% Non-Payers % Payers
1990 1033 60.50 674 39.50 1707 70%
1991 1272 58.20 912 41.80 2184
60%
1992 1533 61.20 972 38.80 2505
1993 1823 58.90 1274 41.10 3097 50%

% of Firms
1994 2333 58.00 1687 42.00 4020 40%
1995 2775 54.30 2340 45.70 5115
30%
1996 2723 48.60 2877 51.40 5600
1997 2386 40.80 3469 59.20 5855 20%
1998 2101 35.10 3879 64.90 5980 10%
1999 2007 32.10 4241 67.90 6248
0%
2000 1988 31.90 4237 68.10 6225
1990 1992 1994 1996 1998 2000
2001 1531 32.10 3235 67.90 4766
Year

Figure 2
1% Trimmed Dividend Per Share by Payer Type
Current Payers Initiators Regular Payers Total

0.35

0.3

0.25
DPS (in Rs.)

0.2

0.15

0.1

0.05
1991 1993 1995 1997 1999 2001
Year

Table 2
Industry-wise Dividend Per Share (DPS) During 1990-2001 (in Rs.)
INDUSTRY 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 FIRMS
Chemicals and Plastics .14 .15 .14 .12 .17 .15 .12 .17 .17 .18 .27 .25 1138
Diversified .19 .21 .26 .20 .20 .19 .21 .22 .21 .22 .27 .21 184
Electricity .13 .10 .11 .11 .11 .10 .12 .09 .10 .10 .13 .10 58
Financial Services .08 .11 .13 .34 .24 .21 .28 .12 .15 .14 .19 .18 1097
Food and Beverages .20 .20 .18 .23 .31 .47 .49 .58 .85 .21 .16 .13 745
Machineray .12 .13 .14 .14 .13 .13 .17 .19 .12 .14 .14 .14 1065
Metals and Metal Product .13 .11 .11 .09 .10 .10 .12 .09 .07 .06 .07 .07 555
Mining .05 .07 .06 .07 .09 .06 .07 .08 .13 .10 .11 .09 81
Misc. Manufacturing .12 .12 .14 .10 .11 .10 .10 .15 .06 .16 .21 .30 324
Non-Metallic Mineral Pro .10 .11 .11 .09 .09 .09 .10 .08 .08 .07 .09 .09 296

3
 Other Services .17 .15 .17 .15 .13 .24 .38 .28 .42 .88 .73 .12 1264
Textiles .13 .14 .13 .11 .12 .09 .08 .06 .06 .05 .07 .06 750
Transport Equipment .12 .12 .12 .12 .13 .13 .15 .18 .16 .15 .21 .17 225

Payers on an average have more than twice the payoff on assets compared to that of non-payers
(Table 3). This finding is consistent with Fama and French (2001). Of the payers Initiators appear
to have on an average higher payoff on assets compared to current payers and regular payers,
though their payoffs on assets have shown considerable fluctuations. Current payers and regular
payers have similar levels of payoff on assets.
Of the non-payers, former payers appear to have higher payoff on assets compared to firms,
which never paid dividends. Never paid in turn appears to higher payoff on assets compared to
current non-payers. It can be concluded from the analysis that profitability has positive influence
on the dividend payment of a corporate firm. Dividend payers are more profitable compared to
non-payers. Further, corporate firms in general and non-dividend payers in particular have become
less profitable.
An analysis of growth of assets shows that payers on an average have higher growth compared
to that of non-payers. Payers have grown at percentages of 29.03 in 1991, 23.69 in 2000 and 10.82
in 2001 compared to 18.65, 4.12 and 1.86 in the corresponding years for non-payers. Of the
payers initiators appear to have higher growth percentage compared to that of regular payers.
Initiators have grown at percentages of 29.87 in 1991, 49.13 in 2000 and 57.54 in 2001 compared
to 28.92, 23.59 and 6.78 in the corresponding years for regular payers. Regular payers in turn
appear to have higher growth compared to that of current payers. Of the non-payers, never paid
have on an average lower growth in assets compared to former payers and current payers. These
findings are not consistent with Fama and French where they find never paid firms to have higher
growth in assets compared to that of other non-payer and payer groups. Similar trends are
observed with regard to growth opportunities as measured by R&D investment to total assets.
Payers appear to have higher growth opportunities compared to non-payers.
Dividend payers appear to be much larger in size compared to that of non-payers. This
observation is consistent with Fama and French (2001). Average size as measured by assets of
payers averaged Rs. 104.4 crore in 1991 and Rs. 1413.43 in 2001 compared to that of Rs. 56.92 and
Rs. 181.20 in the corresponding years for non-payers.
Of the payers, regular payers have higher assets compared to that of current payers. Current
payers in turn have higher assets compared to initiators. Similarly, regular payers have grown an
average asset base of Rs. 112 crore in 1991 to Rs. 1711 crore in 2001 compared to Rs. 54.71 crore
and Rs. 581.48 core for initiators and Rs. 47.11 crore in 1992 and Rs. 654.9 crore for current
payers.
Table 3
Characteristics of Dividend Payers and Non-Payers
Year 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001
Profitability
Current Payers 11.20 12.23 12.67 13.99 12.27 11.38 11.44 9.98 10.02 10.39
Initiators 9.79 15.15 12.57 15.19 13.66 11.25 10.86 2.56 17.02 14.95 14.20
Regular Payers 11.69 12.03 12.00 12.24 12.21 12.02 11.82 11.38 11.31 11.17 11.56
Total Payers 11.44 12.32 12.07 12.58 12.56 11.99 11.71 11.16 11.18 11.02 11.38
Current Non-Payers 6.58 5.16 3.69 3.16 1.99 3.67 2.36 1.71 6.30 -5.81 -3.63
Former Payers 10.24 7.41 6.23 5.37 5.94 9.06 4.81 1.89 0.05 -1.52 -0.04
Never Paid 4.44 6.71 5.29 4.91 5.73 3.89 3.19 2.51 0.63 -0.17 2.65

4
 Table 3
Characteristics of Dividend Payers and Non-Payers
Year 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001
Total Non-Payers 5.49 6.68 5.29 4.79 5.41 5.61 3.88 2.18 0.31 -0.97 0.94

Growth
Current Payers 46.25 27.29 27.95 55.23 39.16 38.62 16.95 15.75 20.92 17.47
Initiators 29.87 92.24 66.77 50.41 93.31 2908.81 51.10 41.09 57.68 49.13 57.54
Regular Payers 28.92 62.44 32.20 36.31 61.54 19.70 54.26 21.24 26.15 23.59 6.78
Total Payers 29.03 63.66 33.40 36.17 62.42 145.56 51.63 20.89 24.70 23.69 10.82
Current Non-Payers 16.13 2.34 26.55 46.48 0.00
Former Payers 29.50 36.26 6.65 12.65 26.38 11.89 32.97 5.30 0.52 0.55 1.01
Never Paid 16.37 39.77 9.59 14.74 32.09 20.13 281.29 10.98 5.06 9.80 3.47
Total Non-Payers 18.65 38.05 9.01 14.46 30.35 16.91 164.07 7.95 2.33 4.12 1.86
Size
Current Payers 47.41 70.66 82.36 167.45 166.17 390.66 503.89 599.65 590.23 654.90
Initiators 54.71 47.88 1314.34 45.60 47.06 33.98 75.89 65.06 435.68 107.72 581.48
Regular Payers 112.00 156.35 233.57 391.44 377.02 397.83 630.04 942.39 1233.47 1550.57 1711.13
Total Payers 104.40 142.09 326.28 326.38 318.96 341.94 571.88 835.89 1083.68 1265.88 1413.43
Current Non-Payers 43.50 77.72 34.30 38.05 13.35 24.37 13.02 7.55 24.26 65.09 18.73
Former Payers 90.14 106.20 98.56 106.24 81.26 55.59 70.47 122.97 172.29 166.22 239.20
Never Paid 51.69 52.68 60.66 53.63 47.08 42.87 48.50 64.99 82.18 85.62 80.57
Total Non-Payers 56.92 63.53 65.74 63.50 51.47 46.85 57.60 94.89 134.95 133.16 181.20

Further, logit analysis of characteristics of payers and non-payers shows that dividend-paying
companies are more profitable and large in size. However, growth doesn’t seem to deter Indian
firms from paying higher dividends. Further, firms appear to prefer the pecking order of funds in
building their larger asset base.
Paired samples t-test has been employed to analyze the influence of changes in dividend tax
during 1997-98 on the dividend propensity of Indian corporate firms. Analysis shows that total
dividend per share has come down from an average of Rs. 0.84 to Rs. 0.71, where as average
payout percentage has increased from 33.33% to 51.05% (Table 4). Mimicking the trends for total
firms, regular payers have registered lower DPS and higher payout percentage. As opposed to
these changes over sub-periods of 3 years before and after the change in tax regime, one year
changes show that DPS has more or less remained at the same level, where as payout percentage
has come down from 1997 to 1999. However, paired samples t-test shows that these differences
are not statistically significant, except in the case of payout percentage from 1997 to 1999.
In sum, it can be inferred from the present study that tax regime changes have not really
influenced the dividend behavior of Indian corporate firms and that the tradeoff theory does not
hold true in the Indian context.
Table 4
Average Dividends Before and After the Tax Regime Change
Sample Variable Mean N SE Correlation Sig.
Total Firms Total DPS After .71 2597 .17 .519 .000
(in Rs) Before .84 2597 .24
Total DPS After 1.55 765 .27 .241 .000
Regular Payers
(in Rs.) Before 1.72 765 .71
Immediate 1999 .22 4848 .06 .426 .000
DPS (in Rs.)
Years 1997 .22 4848 .05
Average After 51.05 1217 19.19 .015 .610
Total Firms
Payout % Before 33.33 1217 1.43
Regular Payers Average After 60.53 1000 23.35 .008 .795

5
 Payout % Before 38.07 1000 1.68
Immediate 1999 27.78 2987 2.65 .072 .000
Payout %
Years 1997 35.87 2987 2.87

To analyze signaling hypothesis, consistent with Healey and Palepu, earnings patterns of firms
initiating and omitting dividend for 3 years before the year of event and 3 years after event are
examined. On an average slightly more than 50 companies initiated dividends in each year during
the sample period, while omissions have increased from 29 in 1994 to a maximum of 299 in 1998
before dropping to 138 in 2001 (Table 5 and Figure 3). Industry-wise analysis of dividend
initiations show that chemicals and plastics industry firms have registered the highest number of
initiations followed by firms in machinery industry. Electricity firms registered the lowest
initiations. Similar industry trends were observed in the case of dividend omissions by firms.
Table 5 Figure 3
Dividend Initiations and Omissions During 1993-2001
Number of Firms and Dividend
Year Initiations Omissions Paid Not Paid Total Dividend Initiations and Omissions During
1993 34 47 1823 1274 3097 1993 - 2001
1994 70 29 2333 1687 4020 Initiations Omissions
1995 54 48 2775 2340 5115 350
1996 62 141 2723 2877 5600 300

Number of Firms
1997 55 227 2386 3469 5855
250
1998 50 299 2101 3879 5980
200
1999 60 218 2007 4241 6248
2000 81 133 1988 4237 6225 150

2001 53 138 1531 3235 4766 100

50
0
1993 1995 1997 1999 2001

Year

An analysis of past and future levels of standardized earnings of dividend omitting and initiating
firms show that the former have lower and negative average earnings compared to that of latter
(Table 6). Firms, which omitted dividends in the current year, have average negative earnings in the
current and all 3 future years and firms, which initiate dividends on the other hand, have positive
future earnings for the next period but on average have negative earnings 2 years after the dividend
initiation. Average earnings of dividend omitting firms have shown significant difference over the
past 3 and next 3 years, where as initiating firms have exhibited a contrasting trend (Table 6). This
implies that firms omitting dividends have experienced a change in their earnings pattern, where as
the initiating firms have similar past, current and future earnings.
Table 6
Past and Future Levels of Standardized Earnings for
Initiating and Omitting Firms
Omissions Initiations
Year Mean SD Firms Mean SD Firms
-3 6.08 16.60 730 -5.24 42.72 246
-2 4.64 14.89 851 1.79 30.00 263
-1 1.80 7.85 918 2.28 38.70 270
0 -7.63 26.35 921 7.22 40.80 285
1 -7.34 20.76 719 4.47 9.14 253
2 -7.96 28.85 606 -7.75 163.55 206
3 -7.82 33.67 460 1.20 15.55 181
Total -2.05 22.37 5205 .94 64.78 1704

6
 To analyze the relationship between dividends and losses a sample is drawn with firms having
consistent profitability and dividend track records during 1990-95 and who have earnings and
dividend information for the period 1996-01. This process yielded a sample of 599 firms out of
which 363 have no losses during the period of 1996-01, where as the remaining 236 firms had at
least one negative earnings (Table 7). Among the loss sample, one-fourth of them have a single
year loss where as 45 firms have 2 loss years, while 5 firms have losses during all 6 years. However,
there is an increasing trend in the proportion of firms reported loss in the sample over the period
1996-01. Percentage of loss firms has increased from 2.7% in 1996 to 27.2% in 2001 (Table 8).

Table 7 Table 8
Distribution of Firms In Terms of Earnings Performance Distribution of Firms In Terms of Dividend Reductions and
During 1996 - 2001 Omissions During 1996 - 2001
No. of Loss Years No. of Firms with No. of Years Reduced Skipped
Loss No Loss Total Firms % Firms %
None 363 363 None 15 2.5 367 61.3
1 99 99 1 66 11.0 52 8.7
2 45 45 2 119 19.9 31 5.2
3 40 40 3 132 22.0 41 6.8
4 30 30 4 115 19.2 43 7.2
5 17 17 5 84 14.0 32 5.3
All 5 5 6 68 11.4 33 5.5
Total 236 363 599 Total 599 100 599 100
Earnings Performance During 1996 - 2001 Year
1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001
No Loss 583 556 520 485 470 436 Reduction 249 258 365 339 339 438
% 97.3 92.8 86.8 81.0 78.5 72.8 % 41.6 43.1 60.9 56.6 56.6 73.1
Loss 16 43 79 114 129 163 No Reduction 350 341 234 260 260 161
% 2.7 7.2 13.2 19.0 21.5 27.2 % 58.4 56.9 39.1 43.4 43.4 26.9
Skipped 48 77 114 151 170 207
% 8.0 12.9 19.0 25.2 28.4 34.6
Not Skipped 551 522 485 448 429 392
% 92.0 87.1 81.0 74.8 71.6 65.4

The importance of annual losses on dividend reductions and annual dividend omissions has
been analyzed with the help of logit analysis (Table 9). The analysis of other non-extreme dividend
events such as dividend reductions and non-reductions shows that current losses are an important
determinant of dividend reductions for firms with established track record and that the incidence
of dividend reduction is much more severe in the case of Indian firms compared to that of firms
traded on the NYSE. Further, logit analysis shows that dividend changes appear to signal
contemporaneous and lagged earnings performance rather than the future earnings performance.
Table 9
Logit Regression: Dividend Reductions and Earnings Performance
Parameters 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Constant 0.094 0.493* 0.219 -0.128 1.053* 1.471* -0.089
(0.75) (5.11) (0.731) (.814) (25.37) (111.83) (0.38)
Loss Dummy 3.256* 2.51* 2.37* 2.856*
(75.08) (25.22) (22.96) (50.95)
Level of Net -0.026* -0.021 -0.07* -0.08*
Income
(4.46) (2.61) (51.39) (84.65)
Change in Net -0.028* -0.032* -0.038* -0.098*
Income
(4.09) (5.65) (6.44) (48.23)
Pseudo R2
Cox & Snell 24% 25% 25% 25% 22% 21% 13%
Nagelkerke 34% 35% 36% 36% 31% 29% 19%

7
 Note: * significant at .05 level
Figures in the parentheses are valid statistic values

Conclusion
The present study examines the dividend behavior of Indian corporate firms over the period 1990-
01 and attempts to explain the observed behavior with the help of trade-off theory, and signaling
hypothesis. Analysis of dividend trends for a large sample of stocks traded on the NSE and BSE
indicate that the percentage of companies paying dividends has declined from 60.5 percent in 1990
to 32.1 percent in 2001 and that only a few firms have consistently paid the same levels of
dividends. Further, narrower indices appear to have higher dividends compared to that of broader
indices. Industry trends indicate that firms in the electricity, mining and diversified industries have
paid higher dividends where as textile companies have paid less dividends.
Analysis of influence of tax regime changes shows that the tradeoff theory does not hold true in
the Indian context, as Indian corporate firms on average do not appear to have increased dividend
payments despite a tilt in tax regime in favor of more dividends.
Analysis of characteristics of payers and non-payers shows that dividend-paying companies are
more profitable and large in size. However, growth doesn’t seem to deter Indian firms from paying
higher dividends. Further, firms appear to prefer the pecking order of funds in building their
larger asset base.
An analysis of signaling hypothesis shows that average earnings of dividend omitting firms have
shown significant difference over the past 3 and next 3 years, where as initiating firms have
exhibited a contrasting trend.
An analysis of other non-extreme dividend events such as dividend reductions and non-
reductions shows that current losses are an important determinant of dividend reductions for firms
with established track record. The incidence of dividend reduction is much more severe in the case
of Indian firms compared to that of NYSE as analyzed by DeAngelo, DeAngelo and Skinner.
Future studies may examine the market reaction to dividend announcements, other possible
determinants of dividend behavior such as flotation costs, and the relationships between dividend
decision and financing and investment decisions.
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