The BHP Group Ltd (ASX: BHP) share price is under pressure on Thursday.
In morning trade, the mining giant's shares are down 4.5% to $44.01.
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Why is the BHP share price sinking?
The good news for shareholders is that today's decline is not due to crashing iron ore prices or a broker downgrade.
Instead, the weakness in the BHP share price is attributable to the miner's shares going ex-dividend this morning for its latest dividend payment.
When a share trades ex-dividend, it means the rights to an upcoming dividend payment are settled and new buyers will not be entitled to receive it on payday. As a result, a company's shares will generally drop to reflect this.
The BHP dividend
Last month, BHP released its FY 2023 results and posted a 17% decline in revenue to US$53.8 billion and a 31% decline in underlying earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortisation (EBITDA) to US$28 billion.
This led to the BHP board declaring a fully franked final dividend of 80 US cents per share. This brought its total fully franked dividends for FY 2023 to US$1.70 per share, which is a 48% decline year on year.
As things stand, this 80 US cents per share dividend equates to A$1.25 per share in local currency. However, the final amount that is paid to eligible shareholders will be based on exchange rates on 11 September.
After which, eligible shareholders can look forward to receiving this payout at the end of the month on 28 September. That's if they don't elect to take part in the Big Australian's dividend reinvestment plan (DRP), which would instead payout the funds in BHP shares.
BHP advised that the last date and time for lodgement of election notices relating to the DRP is 11 September.
