The big 4 Banks & dividend trouble ahead, page-16

The CR in Aug last year to raise more funds for cap requirements under the APRA guidelines raised $2.5B from instos @ $30.95/sh (80.77M shares).

They then ran a SPP offer to raise a further $500M and took all applications which totaled $720M, so oversubscribed by nearly 50%. 272K shares issued @ $26.50.

So total extra shares issued under both raises to meet the APRA cap requirements was 81.042M.

In Nov the final dividend distribution of 95c (same as 2014 final) was paid to ALL shares on issue, including the new. This was not the case with WBC who omitted their new issue from the final divvy.

So, 81.042M new shares receiving a divvy of 95c comes to about $77M extra to be paid out, which is not very much when your full yr profit is about $7.2B.
In fact, if those extra share weren't on issue, all the other existing shares would've received an extra 2.7c each, a bit more than what WBC lifted their final divvy by.

The fact that ANZ has the lowest pay out ratio of the big 4 allows them leeway in this type of scenario, and definitely allows them more leeway to maintain divvys through periods of lesser business conditions, more so than the other 3.

Of course the next round of divvy distribution is going to depend on the actual economic conditions rather than the perceived....for which we'll just have to wait and see.

CBA H1 and ANZ guidance next month should provide a good indicator.