Buffett May Not Pay Dividends, But He Sure Likes Them

Berkshire Hathaway (BRK), aka Warren Buffett, has paid only one dividend since Buffett gained control. In 1967, Berkshire paid a dividend of 10 cents on its shares. It’s never happened again. Buffett has said he "must have been in the bathroom when the dividend was declared.”

Berkshire Hathaway is famous for not paying dividends despite having billions of dollars in cash. The company has many critics who believe that the company should “reward” or “return money to” shareholders. I am not one of those critics. I believe that Bershire/Buffett has proved itself to be perhaps the best allocator of capital on the planet, and I do not question that they can allocate their capital as well as or better than I could if they gave me some of it. I love dividends, but I don’t think Berkshire should pay a dividend.

Berkshire, while known mainly as an insurance company, is actually a conglomerate. It has a dizzying array of wholly owned companies in businesses as diverse as railroads, carpeting, candy, furniture, and jewelry. It also owns huge stakes in several public companies. It is the latter that I want to focus on, because Berkshire/Buffett has shown a great liking for companies that pay dividends.
Berkshire’s stock holdings are published quarterly. For the most recent quarter (ending June 30), here are its largest holdings, the percent of Berkshire’s stock portfolio represented by that holding, and the stock’s projected yield based on current payout. All information is from Morningstar.

• Coca-Cola (KO), 22%, yield = 3.2%
• Wells Fargo (WFC), 18%, yield = 0.9%
• American Express (AXP), 13%, yield = 1.8%
• Procter & Gamble (PG), 10%, yield = 3.3%
• Kraft (KFT), 6%, yield = 3.9%
• Johnson & Johnson (JNJ), 5%, yield = 3.8%
• Wal-Mart (WMT), 4%, yield = 2.4%
• Wesco Financial (WSC), 4%, yield = 0.5%
• U. S. Bancorp (USB), 3%, yield = 1.0%
• ConocoPhillips (COP), 3%, yield = 4.2%

These top 10 holdings account for 88% of all of Berkshire’s stock holdings—a very concentrated portfolio, especially considering its size. Overall, the company owns more than $46 billion in stocks, spread out over 37 different positions. (These figures do not include foreign investments held abroad.)

In Q2, Berkshire purchased about 17 million shares of Johnson & Johnson, adding to the 24 million it already owned. The total spent was about $1 billion, or about $58 per share. This was the biggest increase in any holding in Berkshire’s portfolio, raising its stake by 70%. What’s that worth in dividends? In June, J&J raised its dividend from $0.49 per share per quarter to $0.54, or $2.16 per year. A year’s worth of dividends at that rate for 24 million shares is $51,840,000. Actually, Berkshire will get more than that in the next 12 months, because J&J will raise its dividend again next June, as it has for 48 straight years.

In fact, 5 of those 10 companies are Dividend Champions—companies that have increased their payouts for 25 years or more consecutively: Procter & Gamble (54 years), Coca-Cola (48), J&J (48), Wesco (38), and Wal-Mart (36). ConocoPhillips has a 10-year streak going. In Q2, the second-largest increase in shares held by Berkshire was in Becton Dickinson (BDX), in which Berkshire increased its position by 8%. Becton Dickinson is a Dividend Champion with a 37-year streak.

Charlie Munger, Buffett’s sidekick at Berkshire, has been quoted as saying, “Investing is where you find a few great companies and then sit on your ass." While dividend-raising companies require attention just as any stock holdings do, it is clear that Berkshire/Buffett have found several great companies with a common characteristic—they pay consistently rising dividends. They have helped make Buffett the richest investor in the world.