France Leading Dividend Stock: Total SA

Company's Profile

Total SA is an integrated international oil and gas company which is based in France. It is a manufacturer of chemicals and one of the six "Supermajor" oil companies in the world. The company operates in more than 130 countries and engaged in all aspects of the petroleum industry, including upstream operations, Refining & Chemicals and Marketing & Services. Its businesses cover the entire oil and gas chain, from crude oil and natural gas exploration and production to power generation, transportation, refining, petroleum product marketing, and international crude oil and product trading.

The company is leveraging its integrated business model to take advantage of synergies among its various activities worldwide. These activities are divided into three businesses.

The Upstream business encompasses oil exploration and production, together with activities related to natural gas.

The Refining & Chemicals includes refining, petrochemicals, specialty chemicals, crude oil trading and shipping.

The Marketing & Services business is focused on the supply and sale of petroleum products, together with activities related to renewable energy.

History

Total SA was founded after the World War I. At that time the French Prime Minister Raymond Poincare rejected the idea of forming a partnership with Royal Dutch Shell in favour of creating an entirely French oil company. At Poincare's behest, Col. Ernest Mercier with the support of ninety banks and companies founded Total on 28 March 1924, as the Compagnie francaise des petroles, literally the "French Petroleum Company". It is now one of the top Les actions Francaises à dividend.

The French Government stake in TPC was transferred to CFP, and the Red Line agreement in 1928 rearranged the shareholding of CPF in TPC to 23.75%. The company from the start was regarded as a private sector company in view of its listing on the Paris Stock Exchange in 1929.

Strategies

The company's activities are the heat of two of the greatest challenges of today's world and that of tomorrow's energy supply and environmental protection. As an energy producer it is the company's responsibility to manage these two requirements and sustainable manner.

Its strategy, whose implementation relies on deploying a sustainable growth model combining the acceptability of its operations and sustained profitable investment program aims to:

v The growth of its exploration and production of hydrocarbons, and strengthening its global position among the leaders in the markets for natural gas and LNG,

v Progressive enlargement of the energy supply by supporting the growth of new energy complementary,

v Adapting its refining and petrochemical market developments, relying on a few large competitive platforms and maximizing the benefits of integration,

v He pursuit of intensive research and development efforts to develop energy sources "clean" contribute to moderating energy demand ad contribute to the fight against climate change.

Company's Announcements

The Company's Board of Directors approved a third quarter 2012 interim dividend of 0.59 euros per shares, which ex dividend date was March 18, 2013, Record date was March 20, 2013 and the Payment date was March 21, 2013. In April 2013, Total SA announced that it has indurated the partnership with Veolia Environment SA the Osilub Plant in France.

On June 21, 2013 the company announced that its subsidiary Total Upstream Nigeria Limited which is an operator of ML 130 block, and co-ventureres have obtained the necessary approvals from Nigerian National petroleum Corporation to award the main EPC contracts for the development of the offshore Egina field.

The company has a current market capitalization of 117.27 Billion, EPS is 4.94, P/E ratio is 10.52 and the dividend yield is 5.84% at the annual dividend payout of 0.77.

Conclusion

The company is one of the largest integrated oil and gas companies in the world and also first rank players in chemicals. It has 96,000 employees that work in every part of the industry such as exploration and production of oil and natural gas, refining and marketing, new energies, trading and chemicals.