Bank of Montreal's board declared a quarterly dividend of 96 Canadian cents per share on paid-up common shares of the bank, for the fiscal third quarter.
The dividend is 3 cents higher than the previous dividend, and is payable on Aug. 28 to shareholders of record on Aug. 1.
In addition, Quebec-based BMO secured approvals from the Toronto Stock Exchange and the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions for its normal course issuer bid to purchase, for cancellation, up to 20 million of its common shares, which is approximately 3.1% of the bank's public float of common shares. Purchases will begin June 1 and end May 31, 2019.
During the week of June 4, BMO will establish an automatic securities purchase plan under which its broker, BMO Nesbitt Burns Inc., may at certain points in time buy its common shares pursuant to the bid within a defined set of criteria. The bank will consult with OSFI before making the purchases.
At May 16, the bank had 640,647,217 common shares issued and outstanding, and the public float was 640,285,825 common shares.
BMO's prior normal course issuer bid for a maximum of 22 million common shares expired on April 30. Over the term of the prior bid, the bank bought 13 million of its common shares, at a weighted average price of C$93.97 per share.
BMO Financial Group is a service mark of Toronto-based Bank of Montreal.
