By Becky Yerak | IDEX Corp., a Northbrook-based company whose products range from the Jaws of Life to fluid-measuring products, hiked its regular quarterly cash dividend by 25 percent to 15 cents a share payable April 30 to shareholders of record April 15.

It’s the 62nd straight regular quarterly dividend payment for IDEX.

Its annual sales in 2009 were $1.33 billion, down from $1.49 billion.
Net income was $113 million, or 11 percent lower than the prior year.

“Cash flow has been a good story for us,” Heath Mitts, vice president of
finance, said on Tuesday. “Our generation of free cash flow has been solid
throughout the recession,  and this was a way to make sure we were
rewarding our shareholders.”

The company continues to be interested in acquisitions, he said.

“Nothing has  changed in terms of our desire to deploy capital, but
we’re in good shape from a balance sheet perspective so we want to give
shareholders some of their cash back,” Mitts said.