Ford Motor Company (F -0.40%) has a long history of paying solid dividends. While Ford is a cyclical company, and has had to cut or suspend its dividend on occasion, it has always prioritized paying a dividend whenever it can afford to do so.
One reason for that: the Ford family. The descendants of founder Henry Ford control about 40% of the company via a special class of stock. While that class of shares has extra voting privileges, it pays the same dividend as Ford's regular common stock.
If Ford cuts its dividend, all of its shareholders feel the pain.
Ford has paid a dividend for most -- but not all -- of its history as a public company. Image source: Ford Motor Company.
Ford most recently cut its dividend in March 2020, when it was preparing to shut down most of its factories in North America and Europe at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. It reinstated the dividend late in 2021, initially at a lower level than it had paid before the pandemic -- but it has since raised the payout to $0.15 per share per quarter, or $0.60 per share per year.
Unless a major crisis arises, I expect Ford to hold that level and pay a total of $0.60 per share in regular dividends again in 2025.
But that might not be all that shareholders can expect.
In recent years, when its results have been good, Ford has paid a one-time special dividend early in the year in addition to its regular quarterly payments. Recently, those special dividends have ranged from $0.05 per share (in 2017) to $0.65 per share (in 2023).
To be clear, Ford might or might not choose to pay a special dividend in January 2025. (It didn't pay one at all in 2019, 2020, 2021, or 2022.) But if it does, that will be a one-time payment that arrives early in the year in addition to the company's regular $0.15 quarterly dividend, providing a nice performance boost for shareholders who choose to reinvest the dividend (as most should).
