Monthly Archives: September 2016

September 2016 dividend income report

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It’s been some time since I lasted updated the blog. I was meaning to post an update after I published another article at Seeking Alpha but due to time constraints I’ve still not been able to finish this article. Although I did increase the frequency of my Twitter posts!

I use my DaC Twitter handle to share news about stocks I follow, interesting economic developments, some politics here and there, and other stuff I find interesting. That includes the recent Elon Musk speech about making humans a multi-planetary species, absolutely fascinating stuff from one of the most inspiring entrepreneurs of our generation.

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September 2016 dividend income
The end of the month has arrived so it’s time to add up all the dividends I received this month for the monthly dividend income report. All figures are in euros and after all applicable taxes.

  • Unilever: 16.60EUR
  • Hershey: 5.80EUR
  • McDonalds: 4.91EUR
  • Royal Dutch Shell: 71.32EUR
  • BHP Billiton: 4.56EUR
  • Gilead: 4.14EUR

In total, I received a dividend income of 107.33EUR in September 2016. Overall September was a pretty solid month in terms of dividend income.

Recent dividend increases:

  • Philip Morris: +1.96%
  • McDonalds: +5.62%

Not really big surprises here. Philip Morris continues to suffer from the strong US dollar, which doesn’t give them a lot of room to increase the dividend. The McDonalds dividend hike wasn’t very big either, but still decent enough and roughly in-line with expectations.

Upcoming events for my portfolio
Two upcoming events required a bit of attention.

First up is AB InBev’s takeover of SABMiller. As I mentioned some time ago, I purchased SABMiller shares last year to speculate on the takeover but unfortunately the Brexit vote eliminated most of my gains due to a big drop of the British pound versus the euro. The offer has an all-cash and a partial-share alternative. Due to the currency fluctuations and a big increase in the share price of AB InBev, the latter option is valued quite a bit higher now than what it was a year ago. The downside is the share-based offer comes with a five-year lock-up. I instructed my broker to pick the share-based offer for my shares because I want to build a long-term position in AB InBev.

Another event in October is the YUM! Brands spin-off of YUM! China. For Belgian investors foreign spin-off operations are a disaster because by default, the Belgian tax man considers spin-offs as a taxable event. It’s taxed at the same rate as a dividend, so if I keep these shares I need to pay 27 percent on the value of YUM! China shares.

Of course, this tax is totally pointless because it can easily be avoided by selling your shares before the date the spin-off become effective. If I recall correctly, YUM! China accounts for about 35 percent of the YUM! profits so a quick calculations learns that if I keep these shares, I probably need to pay a tax equal to almost 10 percent of the value of my current YUM! holdings. Absolutely insane so this means I’ll be selling my YUM! shares sometime next month.

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