BB&T won't raise dividend under revised capital plan

BB&T Corp. said Friday that the Federal Reserve has approved its revised capital plan, after the Fed had objected to its original proposal in March.

Under its revised plan, BB&T will not raise its dividend of 23 cents per common share.

"In light of several factors, we approached the resubmission conservatively and did not request a further increase in capital deployment at this time," Kelly King, the CEO of the Winston-Salem-based lender, said in a press release. "We believe this approach makes sense."

BB&T had to resubmit its plan after the Fed in March said it was objected to based on a "qualitative assessment.” The comment from the Fed came after the results of its annual stress tests of the 18 biggest U.S. banks were released.

As part of those tests of lenders' health, they must submit to the Fed their plans to repurchase shares or pay dividends.

Bank of America, Wells Fargo, BB&T and nearly all the rest of the banks passed the tests. Ally Financial did not. As a result of the tests, the Fed gave conditional approval to the capital plans of JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Goldman Sachs but objected to BB&T's and Ally's.

BB&T would not be able to implement its requested capital plan until the “deficiencies” were fixed, the Fed had said.

Ally has yet to resubmit its capital plan, a spokeswoman said, according to a Monday story by The New York Times.

Also Friday, BB&T said the Fed also did not object to its plan to continue paying preferred dividends.