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When specialty chemicals company Albemarle was admitted to the S&P 500 Dividend Aristocrats last month, it put out a press release to celebrate the announcement.

Such is the fanfare that can accompany admission to this club of S&P 500 index companies that have increased their dividends for at least 25 straight years.

But what about companies that get booted?

There are plenty of firms in this category, though not as many lately, thanks to the U.S. economy’s nearly 11-year expansion. Since late 2008, 33 companies have been bumped from the Aristocrats, according to S&P Dow Jones Indices.

Still, dismissal from the club isn’t necessarily a death sentence. The post-Aristocrat performance of some companies is solid, as the accompanying table shows. What’s more, some of the companies resumed raising dividends after their membership infraction.

Kicked Out These are among the 33 companies that, for various reasons, have been removed from the S&P 500 Dividend Aristocrats since late 2008. *In 2015, Gannett spun off its television and digital businesses known as Tegna, it was acquired last year by New Media Investment Group. N/A=Not applicable Sources: S&P Dow Jones Indices; FactSet

The club, which recently added seven new members, includes longtime members such as Johnson & Johnson (JNJ), Exxon Mobil (XOM), and Target (TGT). These companies have raised their dividends for 57, 37, and 48 years in a row, respectively.

In some cases, dismissal from the Aristocrats occurred because the company was acquired. That was the case for health-care supplier C.R. Bard, which Becton Dickinson (BDX) bought in late 2017. Bard had been an Aristocrat for nearly 50 years. Other examples include Wrigley’s, which was acquired in 2008, and Family Dollar Stores, which was bought in 2015.

In an unusual case, Eli Lilly (LLY) was bounced from the group in 2009 after it froze its dividend that year. The pharmaceutical company decided at the time that it was prudent to maintain its dividend but not increase it in order to save capital, as it faced patent expirations on key drugs such as Gemzar for cancer.

The company declared a quarterly dividend of 49 cents a share at the end of 2008, a payout it held the same for six years until late 2014, when it announced that it would boost it by a penny. It’s now 74 cents a share, after a series of annual increases that started in 2014. The stock yields 2%.

Another large pharmaceutical company and former Aristocrat, Pfizer (PFE), cut its dividend in half to 64 cents a share from $1.28 in 2009. That was announced when Pfizer said it was going to acquire Wyeth, another pharmaceutical firm, in a deal valued at about $68 billion.

Pfizer returned to dividend increases in late 2009. Its quarterly payout at that time was raised two cents, or 12.5%, to 18 cents a share, and it has increased regularly since then—most recently to 38 cents a share. The stock yields 4%.

Lilly and Pfizer aside, many companies lost their Aristocrat status amid the financial crisis a little more than a decade ago. Those companies include KeyCorp (KEY), Regions Financial (RF), U.S. Bancorp (USB) Bank of America (BAC), and General Electric (GE).

GE at the time had a large financial business called GE Capital, which blew up during the crisis. In early 2009, as GE scrambled to save capital amid a deteriorating economy, it slashed its quarterly dividend to 10 cents a share from 31 cents. The dividend was subsequently increased from that level, but there have been two more cuts, most recently in late 2018, when it went to a penny a share from 12 cents.

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But as the post-Aristocrats returns of most of those banks show, a dividend cut can augur solid stock performance—notwithstanding the bad publicity surrounding being kicked out of the group.

KeyCorp has an annual return of 11.1% since it was removed from the Aristocrats on Dec. 22, 2008, compared with 10.1% for Bank of America and 8.5% for Regions Financial. U.S. Bancorp, which lost its Aristocrat status in late 2009, has had an annual return of 11.7% since then. The S&P 500’s annual return is about 14%.

“Companies cutting their dividends tend to dramatically underperform the broader market in the year prior to the cut announcement, as investors increasingly anticipate a payout reduction [due to] deteriorating fundamentals and cash flows,” wrote Chris Senyek of Wolfe Research in a research note this past fall. But “over the next two years, companies that have cut (but not eliminated) their dividends have significantly outperformed, on average,” he wrote.

That was the case for General Electric but not for U.S. Bancorp, KeyCorp. Regions Financial and Bank of America. Over the past decade, however, all of their returns have been better except for GE’s.

Elsewhere, Gannett (GCI) ended its run as an Aristocrat in 2009 after it slashed its dividend to four cents a share from 40 cents amid deteriorating advertising revenues. The newspaper publisher, which spun off its television and digital businesses in 2015, was acquired late last year by New Media Investment Group.

Another ex-Aristocrat is Pitney Bowes (PBI), whose shares have done poorly since the company’s exit from the club in 2013. They have had an annual return of about minus 13% since then.

Still, other members have fared better since leaving the Aristocrats. One, Avery Dennison (AVY), has had an annualized return of 16.7% since late 2009.

Falling out of the Aristocrats isn’t fodder for a glowing press release, but it can be a sign that better stock returns over longer periods are in store.

Corrections & amplifications:

C.R. Bard had increased its dividend for nearly 50 years before it was acquired in 2018. An earlier version of this article incorrectly cited its acquirer, Becton Dickinson.

Write to Lawrence C. Strauss at lawrence.strauss@barrons.com