I have been given an income statement and balance sheet to calculate the payout ratio. I know the payout ratio formula is cash dividends divided by net income. But I don't know the dividend amounts. Usually I would get the dividends from the retained earnings statement but I don't have one. How would I calculate dividends with the information I have been given?

Thanks in advance for your help!

To bake a cake , you must have the ingredients.
It would appear that in this instance you have NOT got the ingedients.
SO, you cannot get there.

Is this a real company?

Is this a real company?

No, trying to make sense of a homework question. I realized, after posting this question, that I have a comparative income statement and balance sheet with figures from 2008 and 2009 and I can calculate using retained earnings.

Also thank you for your help on a couple of questions prior to this, your feedback helped me greatly!

You're welcome. :-)