These 3 Companies Raised Their Dividends. The Biggest Raise May Not Be the Safest - 24/7 Wall St. Avient raised its quarterly dividend to $0.2825 from $0.275, a 2.7% increase. The new annualized rate is $1.13. At Tuesday's close of $40.35, that works out to a forward yield of 2.80%, the highest of the three. Dividend safety: Avient generated $301.6 million in operating cash flow last year against $106.6 million in capital spending. That left about $195 million of free cash flow to cover $98.8 million in div ...