The determinants of dividend payout in utilities sector / Muhammad Amirul Ashraf Bustamin

There are many factors affecting dividend payout decisions, not only due to the manager's decision but also influenced by financial performance and cash flow distributions. To tackle the main issue, this study aims to investigate the relationship between dividend payout and the factors that affect dividend payout (debt, cash flows, investment, and growth), focusing on Malaysia's utilities sector. A number of analyses, including descriptive analysis, correlation analysis, and Ordinary Least Square (OLS) analysis, were performed on twelve listed utility companies in Malaysia from 2018 to 202(), a quarterly basis. Results from this study show that cash flow and growth have a strong and positive relationship with dividend payment. On the other hand, investment indicates a strong but negative relationship with dividend payment and debt has a small but positive relationship with dividend payment.