The Welmar Corporation operates membership warehouses that offer a wide variety of branded and private-label products in no-frills, self-service warehouse facilities. In 2016, the company paid total cash dividends of $265,029,000 and had net income of $1,282,725,000.

a. What was the firms dividend payout ratio?

b. If Welmar earns $1.5 billion in 2017 and maintains the same dividend payout ratio

that it paid in 2016, what will the firms dividends be?