| Abstract [eng] |
Dividends are widely discussed topic in scientific articles. The company's management aims to reward existing shareholders with dividends and also to attract new investors. According to the bird-in-hand theory, investors are more likely to invest in companies that pay dividends than in those that do not, because they value current payouts more than the future value of stocks. The authors distinguish between different dividend payment policies and their impact on the share price: some argue that dividends affect the share price (dividend irrelevance theory and residual theory), others argue that dividends affect the share price (free cash flow, stable dividend, bird-in hand, tax effect, signaling and life cycle theory). The study aims to determine the factors influencing dividends and the impact of dividends on the share price of banks belonging to the Euro Stoxx banks index in the period 2016 – 2020. The case study found that the ECB recommended to banks to not distribute retained earnings as dividends between 2020 March and 2021 September. Statistical analysis found that not all banks complied with the recommendations and 82 % of banks paid dividends in 2020. An analysis of the volatility of the stock market price has shown that, on average, the volatility of banks that pay dividends is lower. The correlation analysis found a very weak negative correlation between the debt-to-asset ratio and dividends, a very weak positive correlation between bank size and dividends, and a weak positive correlation between retained earnings and capital and dividends. There was also a strong positive correlation between dividends per share and share prices. The regression analysis also confirms that dividends per share affect the share price. The regression analysis also refuted the hypothesis that the size of banks, the debt-to-asset ratio, and the retained earnings-to-equity ratio affect the share price. |
