How to collect the next Telefónica dividend

Tuesday is the last day to buy shares entitled to payment. On June 9, limit to ask for cash.

Telefónica announced yesterday the details of its next flexible dividend or scrip dividend, the last in this modality, since the operator has announced its intention to return to paying only in cash.

The operator will distribute in June the second tranche of shareholder remuneration charged to 2021. It will be 0.148 euros gross per share or one new share for every 31 old ones, but to be entitled you must be a shareholder at the close of next Tuesday, May 31 .

You can also choose to collect it in cash and for this you must request it before June 9 and those who do so will receive the payment on June 17. Being a script, a modality that is losing followers, the investor has several alternatives.

To the investor who wants the cash, Telefónica offers to repurchase the rights at a price of 0.148 euros per right if they are requested before June 9 and provided that they have acquired their shares by May 31 at the latest.

If you prefer to get paid in shares you do not have to do anything, for every 31 shares you will be given a new one.

The third option is to sell all or part of the rights in the market, where they will be listed from June 1 to 14, but the price is not guaranteed, it will depend on how they are listed at any given time.

The operator thus remunerates its shareholders, charged to 2021, with a total of 0.30 euros per share in two payments with the scrip formula, in December, and now, in June.

Looking ahead, the company's board of directors announced in February the policy for the 2022 financial year, which will consist of paying a dividend of 0.30 per share in cash. The first part is paid in December 2022 (0.15 per share) and in June 2023 the same. In addition, it will amortize a total of 2.41% of shares representing the share capital in treasury stock (as of December 31, 2021), as revealed.

Telefónica, which is up nearly 28% on the stock market this year, offers a dividend yield of over 6% for the next few years, according to consensus estimates from Bloomberg analysts.

But this good streak that the Stock Market is experiencing has left its upward path very limited, according to analysts. On average, they value the company online at how it is trading (4.86 euros per share). Among the most optimistic firms and that still see him travel are Santander, which sets the target price at 5.80 euros, and GVC Gaesco Valores, which takes it to 6 euros due to the expected improvement in its business. The consolidation process that the European telecommunications sector is undergoing works in its favour, by reducing competition and encouraging margin improvements.

From the point of view of technical analysis, the company's shares no longer have significant resistance to pre-pandemic levels, at 5.47 euros, reports José María Rodríguez, an analyst at EXPANSIÓN.

Telefónica's net profit in the first quarter of the year was 706 million euros, 20.3% less than the 886 million in the same period of the previous year. The results did not disappoint. All group figures and comparisons with respect to the first quarter of 2021 are conditioned by the change in the scope of consolidation with the merger of its British subsidiary O2 with Virgin Media, closed on May 31, 2021. Without this effect, revenues showed double-digit increases in many markets in which it operates.