Three Days Left Until Orient Cement Limited (NSE:ORIENTCEM) Trades Ex-Dividend

Regular readers will know that we love our dividends at Simply Wall St, which is why it's exciting to see Orient Cement Limited (NSE:ORIENTCEM) is about to trade ex-dividend in the next three days. If you purchase the stock on or after the 8th of February, you won't be eligible to receive this dividend, when it is paid on the 27th of February.

Orient Cement's upcoming dividend is ₹0.50 a share, following on from the last 12 months, when the company distributed a total of ₹0.50 per share to shareholders. Based on the last year's worth of payments, Orient Cement has a trailing yield of 0.5% on the current stock price of ₹91.5. 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 Orient Cement

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. Orient Cement is paying out just 9.7% of its profit after tax, which is comfortably low and leaves plenty of breathing room in the case of adverse events. A useful secondary check can be to evaluate whether Orient Cement generated enough free cash flow to afford its dividend. What's good is that dividends were well covered by free cash flow, with the company paying out 3.1% of its cash flow last year.

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.

Click here to see how much of its profit Orient Cement paid out over the last 12 months.

Have Earnings And Dividends Been Growing?

When earnings decline, dividend companies become much harder to analyse and own safely. Investors love dividends, so if earnings fall and the dividend is reduced, expect a stock to be sold off heavily at the same time. So we're not too excited that Orient Cement's earnings are down 4.1% a year over the past five years.

Many investors will assess a company's dividend performance by evaluating how much the dividend payments have changed over time. Orient Cement has seen its dividend decline 15% per annum on average over the past seven years, which is not great to see. While it's not great that earnings and dividends per share have fallen in recent years, we're encouraged by the fact that management has trimmed the dividend rather than risk over-committing the company in a risky attempt to maintain yields to shareholders.

The Bottom Line

From a dividend perspective, should investors buy or avoid Orient Cement? Earnings per share are down meaningfully, although at least the company is paying out a low and conservative percentage of both its earnings and cash flow. It's definitely not great to see earnings falling, but at least there may be some buffer before the dividend needs to be cut. All things considered, we are not particularly enthused about Orient Cement from a dividend perspective.

With that in mind, a critical part of thorough stock research is being aware of any risks that stock currently faces. In terms of investment risks, we've identified 3 warning signs with Orient Cement and understanding them should be part of your investment process.

A common investment mistake is buying the first interesting stock you see. Here you can find a list of promising dividend stocks with a greater than 2% yield and an upcoming dividend.

If you decide to trade Orient Cement, use the lowest-cost* platform that is rated #1 Overall by Barron’s, Interactive Brokers. Trade stocks, options, futures, forex, bonds and funds on 135 markets, all from a single integrated account. Promoted

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.
^*Interactive Brokers Rated Lowest Cost Broker by StockBrokers.com Annual Online Review 2020

Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team (at) simplywallst.com.