Dividend Aristocrat Genuine Parts Company (GPC) will raise its quarterly dividend by 9.8 percent to 89.5 cents per share in 2022. This comes after a dividend hike of 3.2 percent to 81.5 cents per share by GPC in 2021 and marks the 66th consecutive year of dividend increases by the automotive replacement parts distributor. This also is the biggest dividend hike announced by GPC since 2012, when the company hiked by exactly 10 percent.

The next dividend is payable April 1, 2022 to shareholders of record March 4, 2022. A new annualized dividend rate of $3.58 per share yields 2.8% at a stock price of $127. Genuine Parts Co will now pay shareholders an estimated $510 million in dividends every year.

Genuine Parts Company is a distributor of automotive replacement parts in the U.S., Canada, Mexico, Australasia, France, the U.K., Germany and Poland. The Company also distributes industrial replacement parts and electrical specialty materials in the U.S., Canada and Mexico through its Industrial Parts Group. S.P. Richards, the Company's Business Products Group, distributes a variety of business products in the U.S. and in Canada. GPC has paid a cash dividend every year since going public in 1948.