H&R Block rocks expectations for its fourth quarter

H&R Block (NYSE: HRB), whose colleagues include Intuit (NASDAQ: INTU) and Jackson Hewitt (NYSE: JTX), reported Q4 and full-year earnings on Monday. The numbers looked pretty good to me. For Q4, revenues increased 11% to $2.6 billion and earnings per diluted share from continuing operations increased 17% to $2.11. According to this article, analysts' expectations were beat by $0.08. For the full year, the top line expanded by 10%, coming in at $4.4 billion. Earnings per diluted share from continuing operations jumped 21% to $1.39.

The tax specialist said it worked with 23.5 million clients, the most ever in its corporate history. That's a nice indication of health for the company, I suppose, but here's a better one. The board decided to juice the dividend. The annual payment will now be $0.60 per share, translating to a 5% increase. Okay, 5% isn't too exciting, I'll grant you, but H&R Block has now increased its payments to shareholders every year for over a decade.

But, as the company stated in its release, although it intends on repurchasing shares over the next few years, it will remain "particularly disciplined" about the subject in the next fiscal year. Essentially, that means shareholders should not expect a lot of share repurchases for a while. H&R Block is reacting to the fact that it is still rebooting itself after being victimized by the subprime mortgage crisis. I'd rather hear a more aggressive stance in terms of buyback plans, but I'd say there is prudent motive in such posture given the company's state.