Woodford favourite AstraZeneca raises dividend but profits fall

AstraZeneca, a stalwart of many income portfolios including Neil Woodford's, has said it will raise its dividend by 10% despite sounding an earnings warning for 2012.

The pharmaceutical giant reported pre-tax profits fell in Q4 to $2.05bn compared with $2.28bn in 2010. It also announced it is cutting a further 7,300 jobs and expects earnings to fall this year as patents on key drugs expire and governments in Europe and the US hit prices. It said it would begin a $4.5bn share buy-back scheme as well as increase its dividend by 10%. The UK's second-largest drugs firm has long been a mainstay for equity income managers and is Woodford's second largest holding in his Invesco Perpetual Income fund at 8.23% of the portfolio (as at January 2012). Th...