Here's What You Should Know About BrasilAgro - Companhia Brasileira de Propriedades Agrícolas's (BVMF:AGRO3) 2.7% Dividend Yield

Today we'll take a closer look at BrasilAgro - Companhia Brasileira de Propriedades Agrícolas (BVMF:AGRO3) from a dividend investor's perspective. Owning a strong business and reinvesting the dividends is widely seen as an attractive way of growing your wealth. If you are hoping to live on your dividends, it's important to be more stringent with your investments than the average punter. Regular readers know we like to apply the same approach to each dividend stock, and we hope you'll find our analysis useful.

With a 2.7% yield and a seven-year payment history, investors probably think BrasilAgro - Companhia Brasileira de Propriedades Agrícolas looks like a reliable dividend stock. A 2.7% yield is not inspiring, but the longer payment history has some appeal. Some simple analysis can offer a lot of insights when buying a company for its dividend, and we'll go through this below.

Explore this interactive chart for our latest analysis on BrasilAgro - Companhia Brasileira de Propriedades Agrícolas!

Payout ratios

Dividends are typically paid from company earnings. If a company pays more in dividends than it earned, then the dividend might become unsustainable - hardly an ideal situation. As a result, we should always investigate whether a company can afford its dividend, measured as a percentage of a company's net income after tax. In the last year, BrasilAgro - Companhia Brasileira de Propriedades Agrícolas paid out 27% of its profit as dividends. A medium payout ratio strikes a good balance between paying dividends, and keeping enough back to invest in the business. Plus, there is room to increase the payout ratio over time.

Another important check we do is to see if the free cash flow generated is sufficient to pay the dividend. BrasilAgro - Companhia Brasileira de Propriedades Agrícolas' cash payout ratio in the last year was 40%, which suggests dividends were well covered by cash generated by the business. 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.

We update our data on BrasilAgro - Companhia Brasileira de Propriedades Agrícolas every 24 hours, so you can always get our latest analysis of its financial health, here.

Dividend Volatility

One of the major risks of relying on dividend income, is the potential for a company to struggle financially and cut its dividend. Not only is your income cut, but the value of your investment declines as well - nasty. BrasilAgro - Companhia Brasileira de Propriedades Agrícolas has been paying a dividend for the past seven years. It's good to see that BrasilAgro - Companhia Brasileira de Propriedades Agrícolas has been paying a dividend for a number of years. However, the dividend has been cut at least once in the past, and we're concerned that what has been cut once, could be cut again. During the past seven-year period, the first annual payment was R$0.1 in 2014, compared to R$0.7 last year. This works out to be a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of approximately 32% a year over that time. BrasilAgro - Companhia Brasileira de Propriedades Agrícolas' dividend payments have fluctuated, so it hasn't grown 32% every year, but the CAGR is a useful rule of thumb for approximating the historical growth.

So, its dividends have grown at a rapid rate over this time, but payments have been cut in the past. The stock may still be worth considering as part of a diversified dividend portfolio.

Dividend Growth Potential

With a relatively unstable dividend, it's even more important to evaluate if earnings per share (EPS) are growing - it's not worth taking the risk on a dividend getting cut, unless you might be rewarded with larger dividends in future. Over the past five years, it looks as though BrasilAgro - Companhia Brasileira de Propriedades Agrícolas' EPS have declined at around 7.3% a year. Declining earnings per share over a number of years is not a great sign for the dividend investor. Without some improvement, this does not bode well for the long term value of a company's dividend.

Conclusion

When we look at a dividend stock, we need to form a judgement on whether the dividend will grow, if the company is able to maintain it in a wide range of economic circumstances, and if the dividend payout is sustainable. Firstly, we like that BrasilAgro - Companhia Brasileira de Propriedades Agrícolas has low and conservative payout ratios. Earnings per share have been falling, and the company has cut its dividend at least once in the past. From a dividend perspective, this is a cause for concern. While we're not hugely bearish on it, overall we think there are potentially better dividend stocks than BrasilAgro - Companhia Brasileira de Propriedades Agrícolas out there.

Companies possessing a stable dividend policy will likely enjoy greater investor interest than those suffering from a more inconsistent approach. At the same time, there are other factors our readers should be conscious of before pouring capital into a stock. Taking the debate a bit further, we've identified 2 warning signs for BrasilAgro - Companhia Brasileira de Propriedades Agrícolas that investors need to be conscious of moving forward.

Looking for more high-yielding dividend ideas? Try our curated list of dividend stocks with a yield above 3%.

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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. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned.
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