Heartland's 50-Cent Special Dividend 2nd By A Carrier This Week

Truckload carrier Heartland Express HTLD announced Friday a 50-cent-per-share special dividend. The North Liberty, Iowa-based company also announced an increase of 3 million shares to its buyback program.

The special dividend was announced in addition to its regular quarterly cash dividend of 2 cents per share. The dividends equal approximately $41.1 million in total payments to shareholders, to be distributed on Oct. 1.

Insiders, including Chairman and CEO Mike Gerdin's family, as well as directors and executives, hold 50% of the company's outstanding shares, according to Yahoo Finance.

Heartland Express has paid three special dividends in the past. The company paid $1 dividends in 2012 and 2010 and $2 in 2007. Including the dividends announced, the company will have distributed a total of $535 million in cash payments to investors.

The company also announced it had increased its current share repurchase authorization by 3 million shares to a total of 6.745 million. The timing of the repurchases is discretionary.

Heartland ended the second quarter with $167.2 million in cash on the balance sheet and no outstanding debt. It generated net cash from operations of $62.8 million through the first half of 2021, increasing its cash balance by $53.4 million.

This cash deployment to shareholders doesn't necessarily signal that Heartland won't make acquisitions as it has done in the past or like other carriers have done more recently. Heartland had $205 million in cash on its balance sheet when it acquired Millis Transfer in 2019 and has utilized debt to facilitate deals in the past.

Heartland's announcement follows a similar action by refrigerated carrier Marten Transport MRTN on Tuesday.

Shares of HTLD were up 1.8% at 10:45 a.m. EDT Friday compared to the S&P 500, which was up 0.6%.

Click for more FreightWaves articles by Todd Maiden.

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