Facebook parent Meta shares soared after announcing its first cash dividend ever following its biggest quarterly growth in over two years.
The company saw its market value rise by over $200 billion Friday and is on pace for a record one-day market cap gain for any U.S. company ever, as tracked by Dow Jones Market Data Group. The move netted CEO Mark Zuckerberg a cool $29 billion in just a few hours.
In 2023 the company shed 10,000 jobs and re-aligned business.
"Last year, not only did we achieve our efficiency goals, but we returned to strong revenue growth, saw strong engagement across our apps, shipped a number of exciting new products like Threads, Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses, and mixed reality in Quest 3, and of course established a world-class AI effort that is going to be the foundation for many of our future products" said Zuckerberg on the company's earnings call.
The $0.50 per share cash dividend will be paid to owners of Class A and B common stock on March 26, 2024 to those investors of record as of February 22, 2024.
"This is a inflection point quarter, I really love the fact that they are paying a dividend and you are seeing acceleration in revenue growth. They've got this copulence of all these wonderful product cycles coming together" Mark Mahaney, Evercore ISI senior managing director told FOX Business.
The stock has jumped over 35% this year as of Friday outperforming the Nasdaq Composite's 3.8% rise. Mahoney, who calls Meta a top pick, sees the stock hitting $550 per share. That's about a 15% jump from current levels.
META CEO ZUCKERBERG APOLOGIES TO FAMILIES VICTIMIZED BY SOCIAL MEDIA
The dividend and better-than-expected quarterly results followed a tense week for Zuckerberg and other social media CEOs who testified before Congress about the lapse in child safety on various platforms, including Facebook and Instagram.
Zuckergberg ultimately apologized to those victims earlier this week.
"I’m sorry for everything you’ve all been through. No one should have to go through the things that your families suffered" he said on Capitol Hill.
