According
to this theory, optimal dividend policy should be determined which will ensure
maximization of the wealth of the shareholders. Empirical studies fail to
provide conclusive evidence in support of the dividend relevance argument. In
practice, however, the actions of both financial managers and shareholders tend
to support the belief that there is some connection between dividend policy and
share price. (Frankfurter, 2003)
Conversely,
Modigliani and Miller showed algebraically that dividend policy did not matter.
They argued that as long as the firm was realising the returns expected by the
market, it did not matter whether that return came back to the shareholder now
as dividends, or reinvested. The clientele effect argues that shareholders are
not indifferent to dividends vs. capital gains. (Myers, 2010) This could be
because some shareholders require a regular income (dividends) to meet
liabilities. On the other hand, M&M (1961) suggested that the shareholder
can create their own dividend by selling their shares when cash is needed.
(Booth and Cleary, 2010) However, this would be time consuming for the
shareholder and possible issues could be that there would be control
implications and transaction costs involved. Their argument that dividend
policy is irrelevant to a company’s market value and therefore shareholder
wealth is based on the assumption that perfect capital markets exist and there
are no taxes or transaction costs.
However,
in reality, where perfect markets do not exist and tax and transaction costs
do, M&M’s views are unrealistic. (Watson and Head, 2003)
Research
suggests that dividends are important to both investors and companies.
Moreover, if dividends do not remain stable or increase in the long run, the
value of shareholders investment will not be seen as returned or maximised,
plus performance and reputation of the business may be doubted, potentially
leading to a decrease in market value of the company and therefore shareholder
value destruction. (Gillet, Lapointe and Raimbourg, 2008)
M&M
argue that changes in dividend policies from low-to-high pay-outs, for example,
should not have a bearing on the market value of the shares, but rather on the
clientele that the firm will attract. Looking at this from the other end,
Miller, Black and Scholes (1974) argue that if clients are satisfied, their
demand for high or low pay-outs will have no effect on prices of shares. In the
real markets, studies have however shown that large changes in dividends do
affect share prices. (Gitman, 2011) M&M’s counter argument to this is that
the effects on the prices are attributable to the informational content of
dividends with respect to future earnings rather than to the dividend itself.
Marks
& Spencer was the first British retailer to publish pre-tax profits of over
£1 billion in 1998. (BBC, 1998) However, a few years later it plunged into
crisis which lasted for several years. They publish £millions loss and
lost their entire market share. Simply, they got the branding wrong; they
copied the catwalks in Milan and changed the target market, and ignored their
main customer base. This resulted in a multi-million pound refurbishment
throughout the whole company. In 2001, their profits recovered somewhat and
they recovered some of its market share, but it was soon evident that problems
remained. However, their dividend pay-out policy remained exactly the same. It
remained the same during their good years, their bad years and also their
recovering years. The fluctuation in profits would not be apparent looking at
their dividend. They drew on reserves to pay the dividend. They did this
because it was the dividend that said something about marks and spencer. If
they had massively slashed the dividend, which might have been expected, it
would have affected the attractiveness to invest in their company.
In conclusion, there are many different
factors that will influence the decisions of management with regard to
dividends. Although offering high dividends to investors may satisfy them in the
short term, future performance must be considered as it may not be possible to continue
with such high payments, especially if the financing of future projects is threatened
by the fact that money was spent on issuing dividends.