DIVIDEND POLICY AND FIRM VALUE OF LISTED CONSUMER GOODS FIRMS IN NIGERIA

This study examines dividend policy on firm value of listed consumer goods firms in Nigeria. Proxies to measure dividend policy are dividend pay-out ratio and retained earnings, while the firm value is proxied by Tobin's Q within the period from 2016 to 2022. Panel data was used to analyse the data sourced from the individual financial reports of the listed consumer goods firms. The study employed panel regression model to estimate the key relationship between dividend policy and firm value. The result shows that dividend pay-out ratio has positive significant effect on firm value while retained earnings had no significant effect on firms' value of listed consumer goods firms in Nigeria. The study recommends that the management of the consumer goods firms should be more focused on high-profit making in order to maintain steady dividend payment to shareholder. In addition, this will enable the firms to expand and attract more investors to buy the company's shares because the increase in the company's value is reflected in the stock price of the company. Furthermore, the study recommends that consumer firms should properly utilize retained earnings because of absence of cost of capital.