The Flight Centre Travel Group Ltd (ASX: FLT) dividend payment date is getting closer. But, investors don't have long to act to gain access to the upcoming payment.
Last month, the company announced its FY24 result and also advised investors on its final FY24 dividend.
Flight Centre reported growth across its various metrics, with total transaction value (TTV) reaching $23.7 billion, revenue rising to $2.7 billion, underlying profit before tax (PBT) reaching $320 million and reported net profit after tax (NPAT) growing to $139 million.
Pleasingly, this profit jump led to the annual dividend per share more than doubling to 40 cents per share.
Most of that annual dividend return relates to the final dividend of FY24, which will soon hit shareholders' bank accounts. Shareholders will receive 30 cents per share.
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Ex-dividend date approaches
The ex-dividend date is the day that new investors miss out on the upcoming payout. Investors need to own shares before this date to be entitled to the dividend.
The upcoming Flight Centre dividend has an ex-dividend date of 18 September — this Wednesday.
That means investors only have today and tomorrow to buy Flight Centre shares if they want that dividend.
At the current Flight Centre share price, the 30 cents per share dividend represents a fully franked dividend yield of 1.5% and a grossed-up dividend yield of 2.1%, which includes the benefit of franking credits.
Flight Centre will pay the 30 cents per share dividend on 17 October, so investors will only need to wait around a month for their cash.
The ASX travel share does not have a dividend reinvestment plan (DRP) for this dividend.
What could the FY25 annual dividend per share be?
Broker UBS currently predicts that Flight Centre's FY25 dividend per share could increase to 41 cents.
UBS said Flight Centre had done "a lot of heavy lifting repositioning the business, with stronger operating leverage potential from corporate in FY25."
While positive about the changes made in the travel company, the broker said it had "cautiously incorporated a moderate softening within the operating environment for both leisure and corporate" divisions. It noted that leisure should be more insulated from general consumer softness, given the skew to an older demographic.
UBS said the Flight Centre valuation looks "reasonable" at under 17x FY25's estimated earnings, with an upside if it can achieve its profit before tax margin goal of 2%.
