| Summary, etc |
ABSTRACT<br/>In finance, dividend payout has long been a contentious topic. In the past, many researchers have<br/>proposed theoretical models to describe what criteria managers should consider when deciding<br/>whether or not to pay a dividend. The objective of this study was therefore to examine the impact<br/>of firm characteristics on the dividend policy of listed consumer goods manufacturing companies<br/>in Nigeria. Using ex-post facto research design, the estimated population size population consists<br/>of all 20 consumer goods manufacturing companies while a sample of 10 randomly selected<br/>consumer goods manufacturing companies was derived using the simple random sampling<br/>technique. Independent variables that were used in this study included Profitability, financial<br/>leverage, liquidity, and firm size and dependent variable was Dividend Payout Ratio. The data<br/>was subjected to linear regression analysis to test the research hypotheses. The probability level<br/>was set up at 0.05 significance. The result of the Linear Regression Analysis hence indicates a<br/>significant and direct positive relationship between profitability and dividend payout of listed<br/>consumer goods in Nigeria with a significance level of 0.031 (p<0.05), a very weak negative<br/>nonsignificant correlation between financial leverage (LEV) and Dividend Payout Ratio (DPR)<br/>with a significance level of 0.650 (p<0.05), a very weak negative and insignificant correlation<br/>between Liquidity (LIQ) and Dividend Payout Ratio (DPR) with a significance level of 0.662<br/>(p<0.05), a significant positive correlation between firm size (SIZ) and Dividend Payout Ratio<br/>(DPR) with a significance level of 0.015 (p<0.05). This study however recommends that<br/>Managers of consumer goods manufacturing firms in Nigeria should ensure that they have well- structured dividend policies in place as this will make the company shares attractive to investors<br/>and however lead to increased stock prices and enhanced profitability. Keywords: Dividend, Liquidity, Profitability, Financial Leverage |
