Below is a list of companies in Canada and the United States that have increased their dividends in the month of June.
The companies we list are not the complete list of companies that have increased their dividends in Canada and the United States or the rest of the world however, they are companies we follow or own.
Canadian Companies
| Company | Previous ($) | New ($) | Change (%) |
| Suncor Energy | 0.42 | 0.47 | 11.90 |
US Companies
| Company | Previous ($) | New ($) | Change (%) |
| Caterpillar | 1.11 | 1.20 | 8.11 |
| Darden Restaurants | 1.10 | 1.21 | 10.00 |
| FedEx | 0.75 | 1.15 | 53.33 |
| Garmin | 0.67 | 0.83 | 8.96 |
| General Mills | 0.51 | 0.54 | 5.88 |
| Kroger | 0.21 | 0.26 | 23.81 |
| Target | 0.90 | 1.08 | 20.00 |
The dollar value listed per share represents a quarterly dividend payment.
Information was obtained from the companies directly.
History of Target Corporation
Target Corporation recently increased their quarterly dividend by 20% from $0.90 to $1.08. With this dividend increase, the company now pays an annual dividend of $4.32 per share to their shareholders. Target has paid a consistent dividend since October 1967 and has increased their dividend for a total of 51 consecutive years.
The big box department store chain we know as Target today, originally began as the Dayton Dry Goods Company. The Dayton Dry Goods Company was founded by George Draper Dayton in the early 1900s in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Its headquarters are still located in Minneapolis to this day. George Dayton passed away in 1938 and was then succeeded by his son, Douglas J. Dayton. In 1960, Douglas Dayton established a multiyear plan to create a discount store chain. This lead to the founding of Target which took place in 1962. Four stores opened throughout Minnesota that year and the iconic bullseye logo was introduced.
Target publicly shared their sales figures for the first time in 1965 as they released the company’s first annual report, even though it was still a private company at the time. The company eventually went public in 1967 due to the Dayton Corporation going public as a whole. Target was one of the five divisions of the company owned by the Dayton family. The company hit a massive milestone in 1979 when it reached $1 billion in annual sales for the first time in the stores’ history.
1983 was the beginning of a new era for Target when the last members of the Dayton family involved in the company, Bruce B. Dayton and Kenneth N. Dayton, retired. Their retirement ended the 80 years of firsthand family involvement within the company. Target cemented itself as a coast to coast national retailer in 1989, just 27 years after the company was created. At this time, Target had 400 stores throughout the United States of America. In 2001, the 1000th store opened its doors, another organizational milestone. The company opened a store in the state of Vermont, in 2018, which meant the department store chain had stores occupying all 50 states across the nation.
An interesting fact about Target is that it was the head sponsor of the Washington Monument Restoration, a project that took 5 years to complete.
Target has had a very inclusive and welcoming company history. In 1992, it established the first GLBT (Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender) organization with the help of its team members. The organization was formalized in 2003 and is the predecessor of today’s Pride + Business Council. Also, Target earned a perfect score of 100 on the Human Rights Campaign's Corporate Equality Index, the very first time in the company’s history in 2009. This is the only nationally recognized measure of GLBT workplace equality. The corporation set a goal in 2011 to hit 700,000 volunteer hours before the start of 2016. In 2013, there had been 1,000,000 recorded volunteer hours by employees. The goal was reached and impressively surpassed two years before the initial deadline.
To all the Target lovers out there, you may remember Target tried to expand to Canada in 2013. They unfortunately missed the bullseye on that one. After two years, Target began liquidating and closing its 133 Canadian retail stores in 2015. Although we unfortunately can't visit Target every day, we can still enjoy a road trip to the US to visit Target and see what new products we can't get here in Canada.