Is Dutch Lady Milk Industries Berhad (KLSE:DLADY) An Attractive Dividend Stock?

Today we'll take a closer look at Dutch Lady Milk Industries Berhad (KLSE:DLADY) from a dividend investor's perspective. Owning a strong business and reinvesting the dividends is widely seen as an attractive way of growing your wealth. 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 2.2% yield is nothing to get excited about, but investors probably think the long payment history suggests Dutch Lady Milk Industries Berhad has some staying power. There are a few simple ways to reduce the risks of buying Dutch Lady Milk Industries Berhad for its dividend, and we'll go through these below.

Explore this interactive chart for our latest analysis on Dutch Lady Milk Industries Berhad!

Payout ratios

Companies (usually) pay dividends out of their earnings. If a company is paying more than it earns, the dividend might have to be cut. Comparing dividend payments to a company's net profit after tax is a simple way of reality-checking whether a dividend is sustainable. Looking at the data, we can see that 70% of Dutch Lady Milk Industries Berhad's profits were paid out as dividends in the last 12 months. This is a healthy payout ratio, and while it does limit the amount of earnings that can be reinvested in the business, there is also some room to lift the payout ratio over time.

We also measure dividends paid against a company's levered free cash flow, to see if enough cash was generated to cover the dividend. Dutch Lady Milk Industries Berhad paid out 100% of its free cash last year. Cash flows can be lumpy, but this dividend was not well covered by cash flow. While Dutch Lady Milk Industries Berhad's dividends were covered by the company's reported profits, free cash flow is somewhat more important, so it's not great to see that the company didn't generate enough cash to pay its dividend. Cash is king, as they say, and were Dutch Lady Milk Industries Berhad to repeatedly pay dividends that aren't well covered by cashflow, we would consider this a warning sign.

With a strong net cash balance, Dutch Lady Milk Industries Berhad investors may not have much to worry about in the near term from a dividend perspective.

We update our data on Dutch Lady Milk Industries Berhad every 24 hours, so you can always get our latest analysis of its financial health, here.

Dividend Volatility

One of the major risks of relying on dividend income, is the potential for a company to struggle financially and cut its dividend. Not only is your income cut, but the value of your investment declines as well - nasty. For the purpose of this article, we only scrutinise the last decade of Dutch Lady Milk Industries Berhad's dividend payments. The dividend has been cut on at least one occasion historically. During the past 10-year period, the first annual payment was RM0.7 in 2011, compared to RM0.8 last year. Dividends per share have grown at approximately 2.1% per year over this time. The dividends haven't grown at precisely 2.1% every year, but this is a useful way to average out the historical rate of growth.

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 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. Dutch Lady Milk Industries Berhad's EPS have fallen by approximately 12% per year during the past five years. A sharp decline in earnings per share is not great from from a dividend perspective, as even conservative payout ratios can come under pressure if earnings fall far enough.

Conclusion

Dividend investors should always want to know if a) a company's dividends are affordable, b) if there is a track record of consistent payments, and c) if the dividend is capable of growing. First, the company has a payout ratio that was within an average range for most dividend stocks, but it paid out virtually all of its generated cash flow. Earnings per share have been falling, and the company has cut its dividend at least once in the past. From a dividend perspective, this is a cause for concern. Using these criteria, Dutch Lady Milk Industries Berhad looks quite suboptimal from a dividend investment perspective.

Companies possessing a stable dividend policy will likely enjoy greater investor interest than those suffering from a more inconsistent approach. At the same time, there are other factors our readers should be conscious of before pouring capital into a stock. For example, we've picked out 2 warning signs for Dutch Lady Milk Industries Berhad that investors should know about before committing capital to this stock.

If you are a dividend investor, you might also want to look at our curated list of dividend stocks yielding above 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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