Canadian National announces share repurchase and 7% boost to 2021 dividend

CN announced that its Board of Directors has approved the repurchase of its shares under a new normal course issuer bid and approved a seven per cent increase in the 2021 dividend on the Company's common shares outstanding. The Bid permits CN to purchase, for cancellation, over a 12-month period up to 14 million common shares, representing 2.36 per cent of the 593,951,550 common shares issued and outstanding of the Company not held by insiders on January 18, 2021. On that date, 711,653,063 CN common shares were issued and outstanding. hislain Houle, CN executive vice-president and chief financial officer, said: "We are confident in CN's ability to generate free cash flow over the business cycle and we are pleased to announce that we will be resuming the use of surplus capital to repurchase Company shares in 2021, while maintaining our 25-year track record of dividend growth". The decisions regarding the timing and size of future purchases of common shares under the Bid are subject to management's discretion and are based on a variety of factors, including market conditions. The new Bid was approved by the Toronto Stock Exchange. As at the close of trading on January 18, 2021, CN had repurchased 1,982,778 common shares at a weighted-average price of C$113.53 per share, excluding brokerage fees, returning C$225 million to its shareholders. Purchases were made on the open market. CN paused its share repurchases between the end of March 2020 and January 31, 2021 due to the economic circumstances. CN's Board of Directors also approved a first-quarter 2021 dividend on the Company's common shares outstanding. A quarterly dividend of sixty-one and a half cents C$0.6150 per common share will be paid on March 31, 2021, to shareholders of record at the close of business on March 10, 2021.