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Adecoagro S.A. (NYSE:AGRO) has announced that it will pay a dividend of $0.1626 per share on the 24th of May. Based on this payment, the dividend yield on the company's stock will be 3.8%, which is an attractive boost to shareholder returns.
See our latest analysis for Adecoagro
Adecoagro's Payment Has Solid Earnings Coverage
While it is great to have a strong dividend yield, we should also consider whether the payment is sustainable. However, prior to this announcement, Adecoagro's dividend was comfortably covered by both cash flow and earnings. As a result, a large proportion of what it earned was being reinvested back into the business.
Looking forward, earnings per share is forecast to fall by 19.0% over the next year. Assuming the dividend continues along recent trends, we believe the payout ratio could be 41%, which we are pretty comfortable with and we think is feasible on an earnings basis.
Adecoagro Is Still Building Its Track Record
The company hasn't been paying a dividend for very long at all, so we can't really make a judgement on how stable the dividend has been. This doesn't mean that the company can't pay a good dividend, but just that we want to wait until it can prove itself.
The Dividend Looks Likely To Grow
Some investors will be chomping at the bit to buy some of the company's stock based on its dividend history. We are encouraged to see that Adecoagro has grown earnings per share at 56% per year over the past five years. Earnings have been growing rapidly, and with a low payout ratio we think that the company could turn out to be a great dividend stock.
Adecoagro Looks Like A Great Dividend Stock
Overall, we think that this is a great income investment, and we think that maintaining the dividend this year may have been a conservative choice. The earnings easily cover the company's distributions, and the company is generating plenty of cash. If earnings do fall over the next 12 months, the dividend could be buffeted a little bit, but we don't think it should cause too much of a problem in the long term. Taking this all into consideration, this looks like it could be a good dividend opportunity.
It's important to note that companies having a consistent dividend policy will generate greater investor confidence than those having an erratic one. At the same time, there are other factors our readers should be conscious of before pouring capital into a stock. Just as an example, we've come across 4 warning signs for Adecoagro you should be aware of, and 2 of them shouldn't be ignored. If you are a dividend investor, you might also want to look at our curated list of high yield dividend stocks.