CompCare to Split Its Stock, Raise Dividend

Posting its 13th consecutive year of increased earnings, Comprehensive Care Corp. of Newport Beach announced that the board of directors approved a 4-for-3 stock split, payable July 16 to shareholders of record June 28.

The directors also authorized a first-quarter cash dividend of 8 cents a share, payable Aug. 15 to shareholders of record July 31. The company had earlier paid a 10-cent dividend on the smaller number of shares outstanding prior to the split.

“What we are doing is simultaneously giving a 33.3% increase in stock to our present shareholders and paying a higher (total) dividend,” said B. Lee Karns, CompCare’s chairman and chief executive officer. The company is best known for its drug and alcohol treatment centers.

Karns said that after the stock split is paid, the number of outstanding shares will rise to 15,122,000 from 11,370,000. The new dividend would give current shareholders a 32-cent annual dividend on the four new shares, compared with a 30-cent dividend a year ago on three shares.

Earnings Rise

Karns said the board’s action was due to the company’s higher fiscal year-end performance. CompCare estimated its net earnings for the fiscal year ended May 31, 1985, at $17.1 million, compared to the $14.1 million it posted for fiscal 1984. And for the final quarter of the year, CompCare estimated earnings of $5 million, compared with the $4.2 million it reported for the same three-month period the year before.

Karns said final figures would be released next month.

In addition to hospital-based chemical-dependency treatment programs, CompCare also develops and manages programs in general psychiatry, eating disorders, other specialty areas of behavioral medicine, and in physical medicine and rehabilitation.