Item 5. Market for Registrant’s Common Equity
Item 5. Market for the Registrant’s Common Equity, Related Stockholder Matters and Issuer Purchases of Equity Securities
Common Stock
S&P Global Inc.’s common stock is traded on the New York Exchange (“NYSE”) under the ticker symbol (“SPGI”). The approximate number of record holders of our common stock as of January 26, 2024 was 2,733.
The performance graph below compares our cumulative total shareholder return during the previous five years with a performance indicator of the overall market (i.e., S&P 500), and our peer group. The peer group consists of the following companies: Moody’s Corporation, CME Group Inc., MSCI Inc., FactSet Research Systems Inc., Verisk Analytics, Inc. and Intercontinental Exchange, Inc. Returns assume $100 invested on December 31, 2018 and total return includes reinvestment of dividends through December 31, 2023.
Dividends
We expect to continue our policy of paying regular cash dividends, although there is no assurance as to future dividend payments because they depend on future earnings, capital requirements and our financial condition. Regular quarterly dividends per share of our common stock for 2023 and 2022 were as follows:
2023 2022
$0.90 per quarter in 2023 $ 3.60
$0.77 in the first quarter of 2022 and $0.85 in the remaining quarters of 2022 $ 3.32
On January 23, 2024, the Board of Directors approved a quarterly common stock dividend of $0.91 per share.
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Transfer Agent and Registrar for Common Stock
Computershare is the transfer agent for S&P Global. Computershare maintains the records for the Company's registered shareholders and can assist with a variety of shareholder related services.
Shareholder correspondence should be mailed to:
Computershare
P.O. Box 43078
Providence, RI 02940-3078
Overnight correspondence should be mailed to:
Computershare
150 Royall St., Suite 101
Canton, MA 02021
Visit the Investor Center™ website to view and manage shareholder account information online: www.computershare.com/investor
For shareholder assistance:
In the U.S. and Canada: 888-201-5538
Outside the U.S. and Canada: 201-680-6578
TDD for the hearing impaired: 800-490-1493
TDD outside the U.S. and Canada: 781-575-4592
E-mail address: web.queries@computershare.com
Shareholder online inquiries https://www-us.computershare.com/investor/Contact
Repurchase of Equity Securities
On June 22, 2022, the Board of Directors approved a share repurchase program authorizing the purchase of 30 million shares (the “2022 Repurchase Program”), which was approximately 9% of the total shares of our outstanding common stock at that time. During the fourth quarter of 2023, we repurchased 2.8 million shares under the 2022 Repurchase Program and, as of December 31, 2023, 18.7 million shares remained under the 2022 Repurchase Program. Further discussion relating to our ASR agreements can be found in Note 9 - Equity to the Consolidated Financial Statements and Supplementary Data, in the Annual Report on Form 10-K.
Repurchased shares may be used for general corporate purposes, including the issuance of shares for stock compensation plans and to offset the dilutive effect of the exercise of employee stock options. Our 2022 Repurchase Program has no expiration date and purchases under the program may be made from time to time on the open market and in private transactions, depending on market conditions.
The following table provides information on our purchases of our outstanding common stock during the fourth quarter of 2023 pursuant to our 2022 Repurchase Program (column c). In addition to these purchases, the number of shares in column (a) include shares of common stock that are tendered to us to satisfy our employees’ tax withholding obligations in connection with the vesting of awards of restricted shares (we repurchase such shares based on their fair market value on the vesting date).
There were no other share repurchases during the quarter outside the repurchases noted below.
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Period (a) Total Number of Shares Purchased (b) Average Price Paid per Share (c) Total Number of Shares Purchased as
Part of Publicly Announced Programs (d) Maximum Number of Shares that may yet be Purchased Under the Programs
Oct. 1 - Oct. 31, 2023 896 $ 366.95 — 21.5 million
Nov. 1 - Nov. 30, 2023 1
2,805,191 362.17 2,798,815 18.7 million
Dec. 1 - Dec. 31, 2023 52,349 440.06 — 18.7 million
Total — Quarter 2,858,436 $ 430.63 2,798,815 18.7 million
1 Includes 2.8 million shares received from the initiation of our ASR agreement that we entered into on November 13, 2023. Average price paid per share information does not include this accelerated share repurchase transaction.
Equity Compensation Plan
For information on securities authorized under our equity compensation plans, see Item 12, Security Ownership of Certain Beneficial Owners and Management and Related Stockholder Matters .
Item 6 . [Reserved]
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