Walt Disney To Forgo Dividend Payment In July In Historic Move

deadline.com:

By Jill Goldsmith Bowing to the need to conserve cash with its business staggering under the coronavirus pandemic, Walt Disney said today it would forgo paying a dividend this July, a historic decision and one that will allow it to preserve $1.6 billion.

CFO Christine McCarthy said the board made the decision to forgo payment of a semi-annual dividend for the first half of the fiscal year that would have been applied in July.

This preserves about $1.6 bilion in cash,, assuming the company had held the dividend stable at 88 cents a share, she said on a conference call to discuss Disney’s quarterly earnings, “We are evaluating a wide range of scenarios with respect to the potential ongoing impact of COVID-19 on our business,” she said Disne