Gildan Activewear Boosts Dividend 20%, Initiates 2019 Outlook - Quick Facts

(RTTNews) - Gildan Activewear Inc.(GIL, GIL.TO) announced Thursday its Board of Directors have approved a 20 percent increase in quarterly cash dividend to $0.134 per share, payable on April 1, to shareholders of record on March 7, 2019. It is the seventh consecutive annual 20 percent increase in quarterly dividend.

Looking ahead, Gildan also initiated guidance for 2019 projecting earnings in a range of $2.00 to $2.10 per share and adjusted earnings in the range of $2.00 to $2.10 per share, on projected net sales growth in the mid-single-digit range.

On average, analysts' polled by Thomson Reuters expects the company to earn $2.09 per share on sales growth of 4.9 percent to $3.02 billion for the year.

For the first quarter of fiscal 2019, the company projects adjusted earnings in a range of $0.24 to $0.26 per share on a mid to high-single-digit sales decline. The Street projects earnings of $0.37 per share on sales growth of 4.6 percent to $677.07 million for the quarter.

The company also announced approval from the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX) for the renewal of its normal course issuer bid to repurchase up to 5 percent of its issued and outstanding common shares, commencing on February 27, 2019 to purchase for cancellation up to 10.38 million common shares.