Does CEO Characteristics affect Dividend Policy?

At present, corporations are spending a lot of energy on establishing an appropriate dividend policy that will bring into balance the needs of present and future stakeholders. Low dividend payout among Nigeria listed consumer-goods firms is a major problem. Dividend policy commands the amount paid out to shareholders by a company. In practice, this is difficult to correctly establish. Can the CEO help in making correct decisions? In this article, we are interested in this question and many more on the characteristics of the CEO. We consider six CEO features: duality, nation, female, tenure, turnover, equity ownership. We construct a dividend policy index from yield, per share, payout, and dividend to asset ratio. We analyze 16 Nigeria listed consumer goods firms for ten years: 2012-2021 (160 dataset) to probe CEOs’ influence on dividend policy. Our results show that, consistent with the Agency theory, Nigeria consumer-goods firms’ dividend policies are affected by their CEO duality, nationality, gender, tenure, turnover and equity ownership. In addition, listing age and firm size are determinants of dividend policy, however, leverage is not. These results are useful to regulators, shareholders and board of directors in regulating and appointment of firm’s CEO. This is among the few studies linking CEO with dividend policy using Nigeria panel data, however, more studies are needed; because the economy is relatively small and unstable.