AKRON-Goodyear has shaved its quarterly stock dividend to 12 cents per share in a move the company said is intended to ``increase its financial flexibility.''
Recently, the company has paid stockholders a quarterly dividend of 30 cents per share. However, over the years the Akron-based tire maker has been known to modify its dividend in response to changing financial and economic expectations.
Days earlier, in a separate announcement, Goodyear said it was modifying its third-quarter earnings expectations to 5 cents per diluted share based on what it described as weak markets that were further disrupted by the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the U.S. The company earned 11 cents per share in the third quarter of 2000.
Chairman and CEO Sam Gibara, in this latest announcement Oct. 2, pointed out that the 12-cent dividend still exceeds that paid by Goodyear's tire-manufacturing competitors as well as the current dividend yields of the Standard & Poors 500 and Dow Jones Industrials indices.