The board of Indel B S.p.A. (BIT:INDB) has announced that it will pay a dividend on the 4th of June, with investors receiving €0.80 per share. The dividend yield will be 3.9% based on this payment which is still above the industry average.
Indel B's Payment Could Potentially Have Solid Earnings Coverage
Impressive dividend yields are good, but this doesn't matter much if the payments can't be sustained. Based on the last payment, Indel B was quite comfortably earning enough to cover the dividend. This indicates that a lot of the earnings are being reinvested into the business, with the aim of fueling growth.
The next year is set to see EPS grow by 34.4%. If the dividend continues on this path, the payout ratio could be 31% by next year, which we think can be pretty sustainable going forward.
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Indel B's Dividend Has Lacked Consistency
Even in its relatively short history, the company has reduced the dividend at least once. This suggests that the dividend might not be the most reliable. Since 2018, the annual payment back then was €0.68, compared to the most recent full-year payment of €0.80. This means that it has been growing its distributions at 2.3% per annum over that time. Modest growth in the dividend is good to see, but we think this is offset by historical cuts to the payments. It is hard to live on a dividend income if the company's earnings are not consistent.
Dividend Growth May Be Hard To Come By
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 not great to see that Indel B's earnings per share has fallen at approximately 5.7% per year over the past five years. If earnings continue declining, the company may have to make the difficult choice of reducing the dividend or even stopping it completely - the opposite of dividend growth. Earnings are predicted to grow over the next year, but we would remain cautious until a track record of earnings growth is established.
In Summary
In summary, while it's good to see that the dividend hasn't been cut, we are a bit cautious about Indel B's payments, as there could be some issues with sustaining them into the future. The payments haven't been particularly stable and we don't see huge growth potential, but with the dividend well covered by cash flows it could prove to be reliable over the short term. We would probably look elsewhere for an income investment.
Market movements attest to how highly valued a consistent dividend policy is compared to one which is more unpredictable. Meanwhile, despite the importance of dividend payments, they are not the only factors our readers should know when assessing a company. As an example, we've identified 1 warning sign for Indel B that you should be aware of before investing. If you are a dividend investor, you might also want to look at our curated list of high yield dividend stocks.
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