4. Factors of Dividend Cut
It is instinctive to consider revisiting the FPL experience. The two reasons that led FPL to cut
its dividend were: the recent speed of deregulation in the utilities industry that forced FPL to
start thinking about the impact of not being a regulated company, and the fact that the
dividend payout had grown to a higher than normal level on a historical basis. The reason
for this is that the dividends recently had been growing faster than the company's earnings
(1). After these issues were taken into account, there were four major factors that led FPL
to simultaneously cut the dividend level and announce a stock repurchase program. First,
FPL believed that the negative signal from lowering the dividend would be somewhat offset
by the positive signal from a stock repurchase program. Second, there was a tax benefit to
a stock repurchase because dividend income is taxed more heavily than capital gains
income. Third, a repurchase program provided flexibility in distributing capital to investors
in case earnings were not as high as expected, which stemmed from deregulation within the
utility industry increasing FPL's business risk. Fourth, switching to more repurchases and
fewer dividends would strengthen the flexibility in the level of cash reserves (2).