Updating Our High-Growth Payers: Texas Instruments

Article Excerpt

TEXAS INSTRUMENTS INC. $172 is a buy. The company (Nasdaq symbol TXN; High-Growth Dividend Payer Portfolio, Manufacturing sector; Shares outstanding: 913.7 million; Market cap: $157.2 billion; Dividend yield: 2.7%; Dividend Sustainability Rating: Above Average; www.ti.com) makes analog computer chips, which convert touch, sound and pressure into the electronic signals that computers can understand. With the November 2021 payment, the company raised its quarterly dividend by 12.7%. The new annual rate of $4.60 a share yields 2.7%. At that rate, its annual dividend payments of $3.8 billion accounted for a reasonable 65% of its free cash flow (regular cash flow less capital expenditures) of $5.89 billion in the past 12 months. Texas Instruments recently began building two new semiconductor wafer fabrication plants in Sherman, Texas. In all, it could end up investing $30 billion on the plants. Over time, the company could build four plants to meet the demand for its analog and embedded processing chips. Production at the first plant is expected to begin in 2025. In…