CHICAGO, Dec. 5, 2024
/PRNewswire/ -- CME Group, the world's leading derivatives
marketplace, announced that its Board of Directors approved two
initiatives to return capital to shareholders.
The Board declared the company's 2024 annual variable dividend,
amounting to $5.80 per share. The dividend is
payable January 16, 2025, to shareholders of record
on December 27, 2024, and totals approximately $2.1 billion.
In addition, the Board authorized a share repurchase program of
up to $3 billion of CME Group Class A
common stock, subject to market conditions.
"The combination of a flexible share repurchase program with our
existing quarterly and annual variable dividend structure allows us
to efficiently return capital and addresses the different interests
and preferences of our diverse shareholder base," said CME Group
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Terry
Duffy.
Including today's announced variable dividend and the previously
announced fourth-quarter 2024 dividend of $1.15 per share to be paid in December, the total
yield for CME Group dividends announced during 2024 is 4.9% based
on the average closing stock price in 2024 to date, an 8% increase
from dividends declared in 2023. The company will have paid a total
of more than $28 billion in quarterly
and variable dividends since adopting the annual variable dividend
structure in the beginning of 2012.
CME Group intends to continue its variable dividend structure.
However, beginning in 2026, the declaration and payment of the
annual variable dividend will align with the first quarter regular
dividend paid in March 2026 rather
than at the end of the calendar year.
The timing, prices, and sizes of stock purchases under the share
repurchase plan will depend upon stock price, general market
conditions, and other considerations. The share repurchase plan
does not have an end date and does not obligate CME Group to
repurchase any specific dollar amount or number of shares of its
Class A common stock.
As the world's leading derivatives marketplace, CME Group
(www.cmegroup.com) enables clients to trade futures, options, cash
and OTC markets, optimize portfolios, and analyze data – empowering
market participants worldwide to efficiently manage risk and
capture opportunities. CME Group exchanges offer the widest range
of global benchmark products across all major asset classes based
on interest rates, equity indexes, foreign
exchange, energy, agricultural
products and metals. The company offers futures and
options on futures trading through the CME Globex platform,
fixed income trading via BrokerTec and foreign exchange trading on
the EBS platform. In addition, it operates one of the world's
leading central counterparty clearing providers, CME
Clearing.
CME Group, the Globe logo, CME, Chicago Mercantile Exchange,
Globex, and E-mini are trademarks of Chicago Mercantile Exchange
Inc. CBOT and Chicago Board
of Trade are trademarks of Board of Trade of the City of Chicago, Inc. NYMEX, New York
Mercantile Exchange and ClearPort are trademarks of New York
Mercantile Exchange, Inc. COMEX is a trademark of Commodity
Exchange, Inc. BrokerTec is a trademark of BrokerTec Americas LLC
and EBS is a trademark of EBS Group LTD. The S&P 500 Index is a
product of S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC ("S&P DJI").
"S&P®", "S&P 500®", "SPY®", "SPX®", US 500 and The 500 are
trademarks of Standard & Poor's Financial Services LLC; Dow
Jones®, DJIA® and Dow Jones Industrial Average are service and/or
trademarks of Dow Jones Trademark Holdings LLC. These trademarks
have been licensed for use by Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc.
Futures contracts based on the S&P 500 Index are not sponsored,
endorsed, marketed, or promoted by S&P DJI, and S&P DJI
makes no representation regarding the advisability of investing in
such products. All other trademarks are the property of their
respective owners.
CME-G
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SOURCE CME Group