Pilgrim's Pride Announces Special Dividend Of $6.30/shr; Stock Up In Pre-market

(RTTNews) - Pilgrim's Pride Corp. (PPC), a food company, on Friday announced a special cash dividend of $6.30 per share, totaling about $1.5 billion. Shares of Pilgrim's were trading up more than 3 percent in pre-market.

Fabio Sandri, CEO said, "Pilgrim's is confident in the future of our business and we believe our capital allocation strategy positions the company for continued, disciplined growth and enhanced earnings potential across our diversified portfolio." The dividend will be paid on April 17 to shareholders of record on April 3. Over the last five years, Pilgrim's has invested over $950 million in acquisitions, $1.8 billion in share buybacks and dividends, and $2.2 billion in capital expenditure, the company said in a statement. In the pre-market trading, shares were trading 3.7% up at $52.13 on the Nasdaq.