Boeing Co. reported today that its board of directors approved a 20 percent increase in the company’s quarterly dividend, to a level of $2.055 per share.
The board also boosted its authorization for share repurchases from $18 billion to $20 billion.
The increases reflect Boeing’s optimistic outlook as the company gets ready to close the books on 2018 with a traditional year’s-end rush. As of Nov. 30, Boeing’s tally of commercial airplane deliveries came to 704, closing in on last year’s record of 763 deliveries. The 11-month tally for net orders stood at 690, compared with 912 for all of last year.
On the space and defense side of business, Boeing is on the verge of delivering its first KC-46 tanker to the Air Force, after years of delay and billions of dollars of cost overruns. This fall, the company won three blockbuster contracts for military aircraft, and it’s also getting ready to put its Starliner space taxi through a crucial series of test launches for NASA.
