De'Longhi (BIT:DLG) Will Pay A Larger Dividend Than Last Year At €0.83

The board of De'Longhi S.p.A. (BIT:DLG) has announced that it will be increasing its dividend on the 25th of May to €0.83. This will take the dividend yield from 3.7% to 3.7%, providing a nice boost to shareholder returns.

See our latest analysis for De'Longhi

De'Longhi's Earnings Easily Cover the Distributions

A big dividend yield for a few years doesn't mean much if it can't be sustained. But before making this announcement, De'Longhi's earnings quite easily covered the dividend. The business is earning enough to make the dividend feasible, but the cash payout ratio of 82% shows that most of the cash is going back to the shareholders, which could constrain growth prospects going forward.

Looking forward, earnings per share is forecast to fall by 19.1% over the next year. Assuming the dividend continues along recent trends, we believe the payout ratio could be 54%, which we are pretty comfortable with and we think is feasible on an earnings basis.

Dividend Volatility

The company has a long dividend track record, but it doesn't look great with cuts in the past. Since 2012, the dividend has gone from €0.33 to €0.83. This means that it has been growing its distributions at 9.7% per annum over that time. A reasonable rate of dividend growth is good to see, but we're wary that the dividend history is not as solid as we'd like, having been cut at least once.

De'Longhi May Find It Hard To Grow The Dividend

Given that the dividend has been cut in the past, we need to check if earnings are growing and if that might lead to stronger dividends in the future. If De'Longhi is struggling to find viable investments, it always has the option to increase its payout ratio to pay more to shareholders.

Our Thoughts On De'Longhi's Dividend

Overall, this is probably not a great income stock, even though the dividend is being raised at the moment. The low payout ratio is a redeeming feature, but generally we are not too happy with the payments De'Longhi has been making. 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 2 warning signs for De'Longhi that investors should know about before committing capital to this stock. Is De'Longhi not quite the opportunity you were looking for? Why not check out our selection of top dividend stocks.

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