Decisive Dividend's (CVE:DE) Dividend Will Be CA$0.03

The board of Decisive Dividend Corporation (CVE:DE) has announced that it will pay a dividend on the 15th of February, with investors receiving CA$0.03 per share. This makes the dividend yield 7.2%, which will augment investor returns quite nicely.

See our latest analysis for Decisive Dividend

Decisive Dividend'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. Before making this announcement, Decisive Dividend was paying out quite a large proportion of both earnings and cash flow, with the dividend being 98% of cash flows. Paying out such a high proportion of cash flows can expose the business to needing to cut the dividend if the business runs into some challenges.

Over the next year, EPS could expand by 16.6% if the company continues along the path it has been on recently. Assuming the dividend continues along recent trends, our estimates say the payout ratio could reach 85%, which is definitely on the higher side, but we wouldn't necessarily say this is unsustainable.

Decisive Dividend's Dividend Has Lacked Consistency

Decisive Dividend has been paying dividends for a while, but the track record isn't stellar. If the company cuts once, it definitely isn't argument against the possibility of it cutting in the future. The dividend has gone from an annual total of CA$0.24 in 2015 to the most recent total annual payment of CA$0.36. This means that it has been growing its distributions at 5.2% per annum over that time. It's good to see the dividend growing at a decent rate, but the dividend has been cut at least once in the past. Decisive Dividend might have put its house in order since then, but we remain cautious.

Dividend Growth Could Be Constrained

With a relatively unstable dividend, it's even more important to evaluate if earnings per share is growing, which could point to a growing dividend in the future. It's encouraging to see that Decisive Dividend has been growing its earnings per share at 17% a year over the past five years. EPS has been growing at a reasonable rate, although with most of the profits being paid out to shareholders, growth prospects could be more limited in the future.

Decisive Dividend's Dividend Doesn't Look Sustainable

Overall, it's nice to see a consistent dividend payment, but we think that longer term, the current level of payment might be unsustainable. Strong earnings growth means Decisive Dividend has the potential to be a good dividend stock in the future, despite the current payments being at elevated levels. We would be a touch cautious of relying on this stock primarily for the dividend income.

Investors generally tend to favour companies with a consistent, stable dividend policy as opposed to those operating an irregular one. Still, investors need to consider a host of other factors, apart from dividend payments, when analysing a company. For example, we've identified 5 warning signs for Decisive Dividend (1 is concerning!) that you should be aware of before investing. Is Decisive Dividend not quite the opportunity you were looking for? Why not check out our selection of top dividend stocks.

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