By Stockpickr Staff
Posted on June 10, 2009

In the next year and a half, dividends on European companies will drop at the fastest rate since 1999, based on the futures trading in Dow Jones Euro Stoxx 50 Index Dividend Futures. European dividends are expected to drop by 28% over last year.

While it may be rough in Europe, in the U.S. there have been plenty of dividend increases recently. With this in mind, Stockpickr has reviewed the recent dividend announcements and compiled a list of the top dividend-increasers for the week.

< b>Cardinal Health (CAH), which provides health care supplies and clinical and medical products, had a monster dividend increase of 25% to 17.5 cents a share, payable on July 15 to shareholders of record as of July 1. This gives the stock a yield way above passbook rates at a decent 2.3%.

UBS recently cut its price target on Cardinal to $36 per share and lowered earnings estimates, but UBS maintained its buy rating on the stock. Cardinal pays out $252 million in total dividend payments, an expenditure that is far less than its operating income of $982 million. It has $3.67 billion in debt with $1.37 billion in cash.

Dodge & Cox is one of the largest shareholders of the stock. Founded in San Francisco in 1930, it has more than $100 billion under management and provides investment management services to individuals, retirement funds and tax-exempt institutions. Dodge & Cox also owns Hewlett-Packard (HPQ), which yields 0.9%; Schlumberger Limited (SLB), yielding 1.4%; and Wal-Mart Stores (WMT), with a yield of 2.1%.

Another recent dividend booster was Supervalu (SVU), which announced a 1.45% increase in its annualized indicated dividend to 70 cents per share vs. last year's dividend of 69 cents per share. The new quarterly dividend rate of 17.5 cents per share will be paid in September. The stock, which has paid dividends for 70 years, yields an exceptional 4%.

This retail grocery company also announced a new annual share repurchase program to purchase up to $70 million of its stock. The $146 million dividend payout is very well-covered by the operating cash flow of $1.53 billion. The company is fairly heavily indebted to the tune of about of $8.48 billion, with only $240 million.

Supervalu is in the portfolio of the Goldman Sachs Large Cap Value Fund, which is rated three stars by Morningstar and ranks in the top 25% of all large value funds over the last five years. It also owns Unilever (UN), with a 4.5% yield; Entergy (ETR), which pays 4%; and Philip Morris International (PM), which yields 4.9%.

For more dividend stock ideas, visit the top dividend-increasers portfolio at Stockpickr.com.

The author has no positions in stocks mentioned.