# Dividends

`kaal:entity:dividends`

**Status.** derived

This node is assembled mechanically from the 4 claims that carry the concept tag `dividends`. It is a roster of what the corpus says under this term. It is **not** an adjudicated definition: no single statement here has been ruled canonical, and no first-appearance call has been made. Read the claims and judge for yourself.

## Every claim under this term

4 claims across 2 works, 2017 to 2025.

**2017**

- [2922176-014](https://wulfkaal.github.io/claims/2922176-014) [failure/argued] *(failure mode)* -- Stewardship pressures push companies toward an unhealthy focus on short-term dividends and share buybacks designed to please the stock market, the opposite of the long-term orientation the codes intend.
  > Indeed, stewardship pressures often expose companies to an unhealthy focus on short-term dividends and share buybacks designed to please the stock market.
  Mark Fenwick, Wulf A. Kaal, Erik P. M. Vermeulen, The ‘Unmediated’ and ‘Tech-Driven’ Corporate Governance of Today's Winning Companies (2017). SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2922176
- [2922176-015](https://wulfkaal.github.io/claims/2922176-015) [mechanism/evidenced] -- A focus on dividends and share buybacks makes it extremely difficult for a company to fund the innovation investment on which long-term relevancy depends.
  > Figure 2 illustrates that a focus on dividends and share buybacks makes it extremely difficult for a company to invest in innovations that are critical to maintaining relevancy
  Mark Fenwick, Wulf A. Kaal, Erik P. M. Vermeulen, The ‘Unmediated’ and ‘Tech-Driven’ Corporate Governance of Today's Winning Companies (2017). SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2922176
- [2922176-016](https://wulfkaal.github.io/claims/2922176-016) [empirical/evidenced] -- Ten of the thirteen S&P 500 companies with above-average revenue growth over the 2012 to 2016 period had never paid a dividend and had never engaged in share buybacks.
  > Figure 2 shows that ten out of the thirteen S&P 500 with an above-average revenue growth have never paid any dividends to their shareholders and were never engaged in share buyback activities.
  Mark Fenwick, Wulf A. Kaal, Erik P. M. Vermeulen, The ‘Unmediated’ and ‘Tech-Driven’ Corporate Governance of Today's Winning Companies (2017). SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2922176

**2025**

- [5454054-032](https://wulfkaal.github.io/claims/5454054-032) [condition/argued] -- Because Landreth holds that instruments carrying equity attributes such as dividends or voting rights are securities, LER rewards cannot include any such features and must function as independent loyalty perks.
  > This is reinforced by SEC v. Landreth Timber Co. (1985), where the court held that stock sales are securities if they carry equity attributes like dividends or voting rights. Therefore, LER rewards cannot include such features.
  Wulf A. Kaal, Liquid Equity Rewards (2025). SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=5454054

## Verify

Every claim above resolves to a record carrying a verbatim source quote, the sha256 of the source PDF, and a preformatted citation. Nothing here asks to be taken on trust.

    curl -s https://wulfkaal.github.io/entities/dividends.md | sha256sum

**Canonical form.** This markdown file is the canonical hashed representation of this entity node. Its sha256 is the content hash.