07-09-2018, 09:06 PM
Interesting question, unfortunately I can't help much with it. I haven't heard anything yet but I would assume that this info is simply not available as the terms of Brexit are still being negotiated. The tax treaty between the UK and USA should decide how much is being withheld, better look to see if the tax treaty will be changed or not.
However, the scrip dividend was already cancelled by RDS.
Offtopic: Regarding the scrip dividend.
Does anyone else understand the point? I mean I get it, they didn't have much cash and they wanted to keep their history of not cutting the dividend. But basically what it did was increase their sharecount when things were bad and the share price was around 20e-27e. And now that everything is good, they will be buying back those shares from the market at 30e+.
I think the company lost insane amounts of money doing this, simply because they wanted to keep the streak alive. I guess this is a good example of why companies can be seriously hurt when they feel like the dividend can't be cut, even if the fundamentals are telling you to cut it.
However, the scrip dividend was already cancelled by RDS.
Offtopic: Regarding the scrip dividend.
Does anyone else understand the point? I mean I get it, they didn't have much cash and they wanted to keep their history of not cutting the dividend. But basically what it did was increase their sharecount when things were bad and the share price was around 20e-27e. And now that everything is good, they will be buying back those shares from the market at 30e+.
I think the company lost insane amounts of money doing this, simply because they wanted to keep the streak alive. I guess this is a good example of why companies can be seriously hurt when they feel like the dividend can't be cut, even if the fundamentals are telling you to cut it.