Caterpillar to Maintain Tradition of Paying Dividends

The board of directors of Caterpillar voted this week to maintain the quarterly cash dividend of $1.03 per share of common stock, payable on August 20, 2020, to shareholders of record at the close of business on July 20, 2020.

Michael Roth

June 13, 2020

Caterpillar ended the first quarter of 2020 with $7.1 billion in enterprise cash and had $20.5 billion in available liquidity as of April 2020. Caterpillar is committed to delivering higher free cash flow through the cycles and to returning substantially all of its free cash flow to shareholders. However, given the economic uncertainty associated with the COVID-19 pandemic, the board of directors has postponed any decision on a dividend increase until later this year.

Caterpillar has paid a cash dividend every year since the company was formed and has paid a quarterly dividend since 1933. Caterpillar has paid higher dividends to shareholders for 26 consecutive years and is a member of the S&P 500 Dividend Aristocrat Index.

About the Author

Michael Roth

Editor

Michael Roth has covered the equipment rental industry full time for RER since 1989 and has served as the magazine’s editor in chief since 1994. He has nearly 30 years experience as a professional journalist. Roth has visited hundreds of rental centers and industry manufacturers, written hundreds of feature stories for RER and thousands of news stories for the magazine and its electronic newsletter RER Reports. Roth has interviewed leading executives for most of the industry’s largest rental companies and manufacturers as well as hundreds of smaller independent companies. He has visited with and reported on rental companies and manufacturers in Europe, Central America and Asia as well as Mexico, Canada and the United States. Roth was co-founder of RER Reports, the industry’s first weekly newsletter, which began as a fax newsletter in 1996, and later became an online newsletter. Roth has spoken at conventions sponsored by the American Rental Association, Associated Equipment Distributors, California Rental Association and other industry events and has spoken before industry groups in several countries. He lives and works in Los Angeles when he’s not traveling to cover industry events.