Winona's Fastenal Company has declared a quarterly dividend of 19 cents a share to be paid to shareholders of record as of July 27th. The dividend will be paid on August 24th.
                     
Fastenal also released information on its second quarter 2012 earnings saying net sales for the second quarter were $804 million, up 14.7% from the same period of 2011.  Net earnings for the second quarter were $112.3 million, up 19.3% from the second quarter of 2011.

For the first six months of 2012, Fastenal had net sales of almost $1.7 billion, up 17.2% from the first six months of 2011.  Net earnings for the first six months of 2012 went up 22.4% to $212.5 million.
                                      
Fastenal operated 2635 stores as of June 30th. and opened 53 new stores since the end of December, 2011.  Fastenal also operated 13,036 new "Fast Solutions" industrial vending machines which make supplies available immediately to various businesses and industries who install one.  Over 5500 of the new machines were installed in the first half of 2012.

Fastenal had 15,578 employees nationwide as of June 30th.