LKQ Corp. LKQ, +2.75% said Thursday that it raised its quarterly dividend by 10.0%, and boosted its stock repurchase program by $1 billion. The auto parts company’s new dividend of 27.5 cents a share, up from 25.0 cents a share will be payable Dec. 1 to shareholders of record on Nov. 17. Based on Wednesday’s stock closing price of $53.43, the new annual dividend rate implies a dividend yield of 2.06%, which compares with the implied yield for the S&P 500 SPX, -0.61% of 1.73%. And with the $1 billion increase to the share repurchase program, which represents 6.8% of market capitalization of $14.66 billion, the program authorization was raised to $3.5 billion. Separately, the company reported third-quarter adjusted profit that fell 4.9% but topped expectations, while revenue declined 5.9% to miss forecasts, and trimmed its full-year outlook. The stock, which was still inactive in premarket trading, has eased 0.5% over the past three months while the S&P 500 SPX, -0.61% has lost 4.8%.
