Motorola Solutions resumes dividends

Article Excerpt

MOTOROLA SOLUTIONS INC. $43 (New York symbol MSI; Conservative Growth Portfolio, Manufacturing & Industry sector; Shares outstanding: 343.1 million; Market cap: $14.8 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 1.1; Dividend yield: 2.0%; TSINetwork Rating: Average; www.motorolasolutions.com) makes specialized equipment, such as bar-code scanners and radios for police and fire vehicles. It gets two-thirds of its revenue by selling its products to governments; The remaining third comes from businesses. The company’s earnings jumped 54.1% in the three months ended July 2, 2011, to $0.57 a share from $0.37 a year earlier. These figures exclude several unusual items, including costs related to the break-up of the old Motorola Inc. in January 2011. Revenue rose 6.1%, to $2.1 billion from $1.9 billion. Motorola Solutions now plans to pay quarterly dividends of $0.22 a share, for an annualized yield of 2.0%. It also aims to buy back $2 billion of its shares by the end of 2012. The company can easily afford this: it holds cash of $6.6 billion,…