Eurocell's (LON:ECEL) Upcoming Dividend Will Be Larger Than Last Year's

Eurocell plc (LON:ECEL) has announced that it will be increasing its dividend from last year's comparable payment on the 7th of October to £0.035. This makes the dividend yield 8.4%, which is above the industry average.

View our latest analysis for Eurocell

Eurocell's Earnings Easily Cover The Distributions

If the payments aren't sustainable, a high yield for a few years won't matter that much. The last payment was quite easily covered by earnings, but it made up 184% of cash flows. While the company may be more focused on returning cash to shareholders than growing the business at this time, we think that a cash payout ratio this high might expose the dividend to being cut if the business ran into some challenges.

The next year is set to see EPS grow by 19.8%. If the dividend continues along recent trends, we estimate the payout ratio will be 38%, which is in the range that makes us comfortable with the sustainability of the dividend.

Eurocell's Dividend Has Lacked Consistency

Even in its relatively short history, the company has reduced the dividend at least once. This makes us cautious about the consistency of the dividend over a full economic cycle. Since 2015, the annual payment back then was £0.054, compared to the most recent full-year payment of £0.128. This implies that the company grew its distributions at a yearly rate of about 13% over that duration. Despite the rapid growth in the dividend over the past number of years, we have seen the payments go down the past as well, so that makes us cautious.

The Dividend's Growth Prospects Are Limited

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. Eurocell hasn't seen much change in its earnings per share over the last five years.

Eurocell's Dividend Doesn't Look Sustainable

Overall, this is probably not a great income stock, even though the dividend is being raised at the moment. With cash flows lacking, it is difficult to see how the company can sustain a dividend payment. Overall, we don't think this company has the makings of a good income stock.

Companies possessing a stable dividend policy will likely enjoy greater investor interest than those suffering from a more inconsistent approach. Still, investors need to consider a host of other factors, apart from dividend payments, when analysing a company. For example, we've picked out 1 warning sign for Eurocell that investors should know about before committing capital to this stock. Looking for more high-yielding dividend ideas? Try our collection of strong dividend payers.

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