Earnings and Dividends Per Share

3 Months Ended

Mar. 31, 2019

Earnings and Dividends Per Share

Earnings and Dividends Per Share

19.Earnings and Dividends Per Share

	Three Months Ended March 31,
($ in millions, except per share amounts; shares in thousands)	2019		2018
Net earnings attributable to Ball Corporation	$	117	$	125
Basic weighted average common shares		334,239		350,215
Effect of dilutive securities		8,437		7,337
Weighted average shares applicable to diluted earnings per share		342,676		357,552
Per basic share	$	0.35	$	0.36
Per diluted share	$	0.34	$	0.35

Certain outstanding options were excluded from the diluted earnings per share calculation because they were anti-dilutive (i.e., their assumed conversion into common stock would increase rather than decrease earnings per share). The options excluded totaled 1 million and 5 million for the three months ended March 31,  2019 and 2018, respectively. 

The company declared and paid dividends of $0.10 per share in the first quarters of 2019 and 2018. On April 24, 2019, Ball’s board of directors increased the company’s quarterly common share dividend by 50 percent to 15 cents per share, which will be effective for the next quarterly dividend to be paid to on June 17, 2019, to shareholders of record as of June 3, 2019.