[Am-info] Microsoft to Issue First-Ever Dividend

[Mitch Stone]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=3Dstory&ncid=3D528&e=3D1&cid=3D528&u=
=3D/ap/=20
20030117/ap_on_hi_te/earns_microsoft

Microsoft to Issue First-Ever Dividend

SEATTLE - Microsoft Corp. offered its first dividend to shareholders =20
Thursday and reported a boost in quarterly earnings, but its stock =20
value slumped anyway on its lower revenue estimates for 2003.

The Redmond software giant also announced plans for a two-for-one stock =20=

split that will take effect Jan. 27.

Microsoft long had opposed calls from some shareholders to use some of =20=

its cash hoard =97 now $43.4 billion =97 to pay a dividend. But =
Microsoft's =20
board unanimously decided Thursday to pay a dividend of 8 cents per =20
share after the stock split, chief financial officer John Connors said.

"We were the only Dow 30 company that has not declared and paid a =20
dividend," Connors noted.

Microsoft chairman Bill Gates ( news -web sites ), who would own about =20=

1.2 billion shares after the stock split, would receive a dividend of =20=

$99.5 million.=20=