Wing Tai Holdings (SGX:W05) Has Affirmed Its Dividend Of SGD0.06

Wing Tai Holdings Limited's (SGX:W05) investors are due to receive a payment of SGD0.06 per share on 18th of November. This means that the annual payment will be 3.9% of the current stock price, which is in line with the average for the industry.

Check out our latest analysis for Wing Tai Holdings

Wing Tai Holdings Doesn't Earn Enough To Cover Its Payments

We like a dividend to be consistent over the long term, so checking whether it is sustainable is important. However, prior to this announcement, Wing Tai Holdings' dividend was comfortably covered by both cash flow and earnings. As a result, a large proportion of what it earned was being reinvested back into the business.

EPS is set to fall by 88.8% over the next 12 months. If the dividend continues along recent trends, we estimate the payout ratio could reach over 200%, which could put the dividend in jeopardy if the company's earnings don't improve.

Dividend Volatility

The company has a long dividend track record, but it doesn't look great with cuts in the past. The annual payment during the last 10 years was SGD0.07 in 2012, and the most recent fiscal year payment was SGD0.06. Doing the maths, this is a decline of about 1.5% per year. A company that decreases its dividend over time generally isn't what we are looking for.

The Dividend Looks Likely To Grow

Growing earnings per share could be a mitigating factor when considering the past fluctuations in the dividend. We are encouraged to see that Wing Tai Holdings has grown earnings per share at 45% per year over the past five years. A low payout ratio gives the company a lot of flexibility, and growing earnings also make it very easy for it to grow the dividend.

Wing Tai Holdings Looks Like A Great Dividend Stock

In summary, it is good to see that the dividend is staying consistent, and we don't think there is any reason to suspect this might change over the medium term. The company is generating plenty of cash, and the earnings also quite easily cover the distributions. We should point out that the earnings are expected to fall over the next 12 months, which won't be a problem if this doesn't become a trend, but could cause some turbulence in the next year. All in all, this checks a lot of the boxes we look for when choosing an income stock.

Market movements attest to how highly valued a consistent dividend policy is compared to one which is more unpredictable. However, there are other things to consider for investors when analysing stock performance. To that end, Wing Tai Holdings has 2 warning signs (and 1 which makes us a bit uncomfortable) we think you should know about. Looking for more high-yielding dividend ideas? Try our collection of strong dividend payers.

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