With its shares slipping below the important $50 mark, CBS Corp.‘s Board of Directors went ahead and approved a quarterly dividend on the company’s stock.
At the closing bell on Wall Street, CBS was trading at $49.47 — and has been struggling to get above a price seen just once since February 2016.
With a 1-year target estimate of $63.64 and trading largely between $50 and $60, any dip below $50 may be a sign of uncertainty among investors for a company that’s taken its punches over the last six months. Former CEO Les Moonves is going to arbitration over a severance payment. Noted analyst Michael Nathanson insists a reunification of CBS with Viacom will happen by year’s end.
Nevertheless, CBS’s board on Thursday said OK to a quarterly dividend of $0.18 per share, payable April 1 to shareholders of record on March 11.
The other big news involving CBS to emerge involves what happens after a new CEO arrives and a merger with Viacom happens. “That’s not going to be enough,” CNBC Technology Reporter Alex Sherman believes and shared on The Exchange today.
So, could CBS be eyeing Discovery? That’s a suggestion Sherman offered in a segment on “media M&A mania” with Robert Johnson, founder of BET — now owned by Viacom.
Johnson said, “You can’t compete against a content company just as another content company. Content creation is a creative exercise; it is not a financial exercise. You’ve got to figure out what’s your long-term strategy, and I think acquiring content to leverage your ability to get more revenue out of your distribution platform makes sense. But, ultimately it is a value driver because at some point there will be a consolidation by the people with more capital to spend, and that’s going to come from people who have a multiplatform business of content, customers and advertising.”
Who are the buyers? Netflix could be a buyer for a library, Sherman suggests. But, there’s no evidence that such a move could happen as CBS ponders how to pave its future path.
