Why Cholamandalam Investment and Finance Company Limited (NSE:CHOLAFIN) Should Be In Your Dividend Portfolio

Is Cholamandalam Investment and Finance Company Limited (NSE:CHOLAFIN) a good dividend stock? How can we tell? Dividend paying companies with growing earnings can be highly rewarding in the long term. Unfortunately, it's common for investors to be enticed in by the seemingly attractive yield, and lose money when the company has to cut its dividend payments.

A 0.4% yield is nothing to get excited about, but investors probably think the long payment history suggests Cholamandalam Investment and Finance has some staying power. That said, the recent jump in the share price will make Cholamandalam Investment and Finance's dividend yield look smaller, even though the company prospects could be improving. 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 Cholamandalam Investment and Finance!

Payout ratios

Dividends are usually paid out of company earnings. If a company is paying more than it earns, then the dividend might become unsustainable - hardly an ideal situation. Comparing dividend payments to a company's net profit after tax is a simple way of reality-checking whether a dividend is sustainable. Cholamandalam Investment and Finance paid out 8.0% of its profit as dividends, over the trailing twelve month period. We'd say its dividends are thoroughly covered by earnings.

Remember, you can always get a snapshot of Cholamandalam Investment and Finance's latest financial position, by checking our visualisation of its financial health.

Dividend Volatility

From the perspective of an income investor who wants to earn dividends for many years, there is not much point buying a stock if its dividend is regularly cut or is not reliable. Cholamandalam Investment and Finance has been paying dividends for a long time, but for the purpose of this analysis, we only examine the past 10 years of payments. This dividend has been unstable, which we define as having been cut one or more times over this time. During the past 10-year period, the first annual payment was ₹0.2 in 2011, compared to ₹2.0 last year. This works out to be a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of approximately 26% a year over that time. The growth in dividends has not been linear, but the CAGR is a decent approximation of the rate of change over this time frame.

Cholamandalam Investment and Finance has grown distributions at a rapid rate despite cutting the dividend at least once in the past. Companies that cut once often cut again, but it might be worth considering if the business has turned a corner.

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. It's good to see Cholamandalam Investment and Finance has been growing its earnings per share at 18% a year over the past five years. Earnings per share are growing at a solid clip, and the payout ratio is low. We think this is an ideal combination in a dividend stock.

We'd also point out that Cholamandalam Investment and Finance issued a meaningful number of new shares in the past year. Regularly issuing new shares can be detrimental - it's hard to grow dividends per share when new shares are regularly being created.

Conclusion

To summarise, shareholders should always check that Cholamandalam Investment and Finance's dividends are affordable, that its dividend payments are relatively stable, and that it has decent prospects for growing its earnings and dividend. We're glad to see Cholamandalam Investment and Finance has a low payout ratio, as this suggests earnings are being reinvested in the business. We were also glad to see it growing earnings, but it was concerning to see the dividend has been cut at least once in the past. Cholamandalam Investment and Finance has a number of positive attributes, but falls short of our ideal dividend company. It may be worth a look at the right price, though.

Companies possessing a stable dividend policy will likely enjoy greater investor interest than those suffering from a more inconsistent approach. However, there are other things to consider for investors when analysing stock performance. Just as an example, we've come accross 4 warning signs for Cholamandalam Investment and Finance you should be aware of, and 1 of them doesn't sit too well with us.

We have also put together a list of global stocks with a market capitalisation above $1bn and yielding more 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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