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Cabot Corporation (NYSE:CBT) is about to trade ex-dividend in the next four days. Investors can purchase shares before the 27th of August in order to be eligible for this dividend, which will be paid on the 11th of September.
Cabot's upcoming dividend is US$0.35 a share, following on from the last 12 months, when the company distributed a total of US$1.40 per share to shareholders. Calculating the last year's worth of payments shows that Cabot has a trailing yield of 3.6% on the current share price of $38.39. We love seeing companies pay a dividend, but it's also important to be sure that laying the golden eggs isn't going to kill our golden goose! We need to see whether the dividend is covered by earnings and if it's growing.
See our latest analysis for Cabot
If a company pays out more in dividends than it earned, then the dividend might become unsustainable - hardly an ideal situation. Cabot distributed an unsustainably high 123% of its profit as dividends to shareholders last year. Without extenuating circumstances, we'd consider the dividend at risk of a cut. 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. Thankfully its dividend payments took up just 33% of the free cash flow it generated, which is a comfortable payout ratio.
It's good to see that while Cabot's dividends were not covered by profits, at least they are affordable from a cash perspective. If executives were to continue paying more in dividends than the company reported in profits, we'd view this as a warning sign. Extraordinarily few companies are capable of persistently paying a dividend that is greater than their profits.
Click here to see the company's payout ratio, plus analyst estimates of its future dividends.
Have Earnings And Dividends Been Growing?
When earnings decline, dividend companies become much harder to analyse and own safely. If earnings decline and the company is forced to cut its dividend, investors could watch the value of their investment go up in smoke. Readers will understand then, why we're concerned to see Cabot's earnings per share have dropped 18% a year over the past five years. Such a sharp decline casts doubt on the future sustainability of the dividend.
Another key way to measure a company's dividend prospects is by measuring its historical rate of dividend growth. Since the start of our data, 10 years ago, Cabot has lifted its dividend by approximately 6.9% a year on average. That's intriguing, but the combination of growing dividends despite declining earnings can typically only be achieved by paying out a larger percentage of profits. Cabot is already paying out 123% of its profits, and with shrinking earnings we think it's unlikely that this dividend will grow quickly in the future.