It looks like West Bancorporation, Inc. (NASDAQ:WTBA) is about to go ex-dividend in the next 3 days. Ex-dividend means that investors that purchase the stock on or after the 6th of August will not receive this dividend, which will be paid on the 21st of August.
West Bancorporation’s next dividend payment will be US$0.21 per share, and in the last 12 months, the company paid a total of US$0.84 per share. Based on the last year’s worth of payments, West Bancorporation stock has a trailing yield of around 4.0% on the current share price of $21.07. Dividends are an important source of income to many shareholders, but the health of the business is crucial to maintaining those dividends. So we need to check whether the dividend payments are covered, and if earnings are growing.
See our latest analysis for West Bancorporation
Dividends are typically paid from company earnings. If a company pays more in dividends than it earned in profit, then the dividend could be unsustainable. West Bancorporation paid out a comfortable 47% of its profit last year.
When a company paid out less in dividends than it earned in profit, this generally suggests its dividend is affordable. The lower the % of its profit that it pays out, the greater the margin of safety for the dividend if the business enters a downturn.
Click here to see how much of its profit West Bancorporation paid out over the last 12 months.
Have Earnings And Dividends Been Growing?
Businesses with strong growth prospects usually make the best dividend payers, because it’s easier to grow dividends when earnings per share are improving. If earnings decline and the company is forced to cut its dividend, investors could watch the value of their investment go up in smoke. Fortunately for readers, West Bancorporation’s earnings per share have been growing at 11% a year for the past five years.
Many investors will assess a company’s dividend performance by evaluating how much the dividend payments have changed over time. West Bancorporation has delivered an average of 2.8% per year annual increase in its dividend, based on the past 10 years of dividend payments. It’s good to see both earnings and the dividend have improved – although the former has been rising much quicker than the latter, possibly due to the company reinvesting more of its profits in growth.
Final Takeaway
From a dividend perspective, should investors buy or avoid West Bancorporation? When companies are growing rapidly and retaining a majority of the profits within the business, it’s usually a sign that reinvesting earnings creates more value than paying dividends to shareholders. Perhaps even more importantly – this can sometimes signal management is focused on the long term future of the business. Overall, West Bancorporation looks like a promising dividend stock in this analysis, and we think it would be worth investigating further.
Keen to explore more data on West Bancorporation’s financial performance? Check out our visualisation of its historical revenue and earnings growth.
If you’re in the market for dividend stocks, we recommend checking our list of top dividend stocks with a greater than 2% yield and an upcoming dividend.
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If you spot an error that warrants correction, please contact the editor at editorial-team@simplywallst.com. This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. Simply Wall St has no position in the stocks mentioned. Thank you for reading.