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Bapcor Limited (ASX:BAP) stock is about to trade ex-dividend in four days. Investors can purchase shares before the 28th of August in order to be eligible for this dividend, which will be paid on the 11th of September.
Bapcor's next dividend payment will be AU$0.095 per share. Last year, in total, the company distributed AU$0.17 to shareholders. Calculating the last year's worth of payments shows that Bapcor has a trailing yield of 2.5% on the current share price of A$6.87. Dividends are an important source of income to many shareholders, but the health of the business is crucial to maintaining those dividends. That's why we should always check whether the dividend payments appear sustainable, and if the company is growing.
Check out our latest analysis for Bapcor
Dividends are typically paid out of company income, so if a company pays out more than it earned, its dividend is usually at a higher risk of being cut. Bapcor is paying out an acceptable 65% of its profit, a common payout level among most companies. Yet cash flows are even more important than profits for assessing a dividend, so we need to see if the company generated enough cash to pay its distribution. What's good is that dividends were well covered by free cash flow, with the company paying out 22% of its cash flow last year.
It's encouraging to see that the dividend is covered by both profit and cash flow. This generally suggests the dividend is sustainable, as long as earnings don't drop precipitously.
Click here to see the company's payout ratio, plus analyst estimates of its future dividends.
Have Earnings And Dividends Been Growing?
Companies with consistently growing earnings per share generally make the best dividend stocks, as they usually find it easier to grow dividends per share. If business enters a downturn and the dividend is cut, the company could see its value fall precipitously. For this reason, we're glad to see Bapcor's earnings per share have risen 19% per annum over the last five years. Bapcor is paying out a bit over half its earnings, which suggests the company is striking a balance between reinvesting in growth, and paying dividends. This is a reasonable combination that could hint at some further dividend increases in the future.
We'd also point out that Bapcor issued a meaningful number of new shares in the past year. Trying to grow the dividend while issuing large amounts of new shares reminds us of the ancient Greek tale of Sisyphus - perpetually pushing a boulder uphill.
The main way most investors will assess a company's dividend prospects is by checking the historical rate of dividend growth. Since the start of our data, six years ago, Bapcor has lifted its dividend by approximately 14% a year on average. It's exciting to see that both earnings and dividends per share have grown rapidly over the past few years.