Lintner's Model

Lintner’s model was developed by John Linter; it models a stable corporation’s dividend payout over time, which may fluctuate up and down.

The Board of Directors of a company can use Lintner’s model to figure out what the payout should be, based on their target goal, speed, and any market fluctuations. While it’s ideal to keep paying shareholders a consistent amount, that’s not always feasible, so companies often won’t start paying out more until they’re sure they’ll be able to do so consistently over time. Otherwise, you’re setting up shareholders for disappointment and the feeling of instability with too many fluctuations. Sticky pricing is a Thing.

Lintner didn’t use just theory, but actual data from 28 giant firms, to come up with his model: the change in dividend payout from the last period is equal to K, a constant, plus the difference of the firm’s target payout and dividend adjustment speed (adjusted by a coefficient), plus an error term (always).

Related or Semi-related Video

Finance: What is the Dividend Discount M...2 Views

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Finance allah shmoop what is the dividend discount model Well

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it's a technique used to value companies or at least

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it wass in the stone age And yet in the

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nineteen fifties maybe which basically says that a company's value

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is fully contained in the cash dividends it distributes back

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to invest doors This model is only useful really for

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its historical relevance We we just don't use that much

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these days Yeah back in the old timey cave man

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days when there was essentially no research of real merit

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being done on the performance of investments of whatever flavor

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the dividend discount model was the best thing investors had

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to value an investment in a company And remember in

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those days companies paid rial dividends that were a meaningful

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percentage of the total value of the company Unless so

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a company pays a dollar a share this year in

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dividends Historically it's raised dividends at about three percent a

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year like paid a dollar last you'd expect two dollars

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three next year in dollars six and change the next

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so well The dividend discount model discounts backto present value

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And yes we have an opus on what president value

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Means but here's the logline definition present value of all

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future cash flows discounted for risk in time Back to

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cars Yeah that thing well a few odd things are

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worth noting in this horse and buggy era formula The

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dividend discount model ignores the terminal or end value of

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the company Like say twenty years from now the company

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is sold for cash The dividends are all that are

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really focused on though in our model that seem strange

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to you Well maybe But let's say the discount rate

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is ten percent in the risk free rate is four

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percent for a total of fourteen percent a year discounted

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back to the present So doing the math just looking

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at the terminal value of say a hundred million bucks

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in a sale to be made twenty years from now

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Let's figure out what that's worth today Well you take

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the one point one four Put it to the twentieth

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power to reflect twenty years of discounted valuation compounding And

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you say one point one four forty twenty powers about

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thirteen point seven So to get the present value of

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one hundred million bucks twenty years from now using this

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discount rate Will you divide the hundred million by thirteen

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point seven and that means that the one hundred million

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dollars twenty years from now today is worth only seven

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point three million bucks And yeah that's ah big haircut

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kind of like this guy Well the formula focuses ah

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lot on near term dividend distribution and it's Really more

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interesting is a relic of original financial research in theory

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than anything directly useful today And if you find this

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interesting while then we may have a gig for you

02:36

here at shmoop finance central Yeah come on down We 00:02:39.715 --> [endTime] need writers good ones not like me

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