Does It Make Sense To Buy Kanpai Co., Ltd (GTSM:1269) For Its Yield?

Is Kanpai Co., Ltd (GTSM:1269) a good dividend stock? How can we tell? Dividend paying companies with growing earnings can be highly rewarding in the long term. 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.

With a 2.7% yield and a four-year payment history, investors probably think Kanpai looks like a reliable dividend stock. A 2.7% yield is not inspiring, but the longer payment history has some appeal. Some simple analysis can reduce the risk of holding Kanpai for its dividend, and we'll focus on the most important aspects below.

Explore this interactive chart for our latest analysis on Kanpai!

Payout ratios

Dividends are typically paid from company earnings. If a company pays more in dividends than it earned, then the dividend might become unsustainable - hardly an ideal situation. As a result, we should always investigate whether a company can afford its dividend, measured as a percentage of a company's net income after tax. In the last year, Kanpai paid out 138% of its profit as dividends. A payout ratio above 100% is definitely an item of concern, unless there are some other circumstances that would justify it.

We also measure dividends paid against a company's levered free cash flow, to see if enough cash was generated to cover the dividend. Kanpai's cash payout ratio last year was 15%, which is quite low and suggests that the dividend was thoroughly covered by cash flow. It's disappointing to see that the dividend was not covered by profits, but cash is more important from a dividend sustainability perspective, and Kanpai fortunately did generate enough cash to fund its dividend. If executives were to continue paying more in dividends than the company reported in profits, we'd view this as a warning sign. Extraordinarily few companies are capable of persistently paying a dividend that is greater than their profits.

With a strong net cash balance, Kanpai investors may not have much to worry about in the near term from a dividend perspective.

Consider getting our latest analysis on Kanpai's financial position here.

Dividend Volatility

From the perspective of an income investor who wants to earn dividends for many years, there is not much point buying a stock if its dividend is regularly cut or is not reliable. Kanpai has been paying a dividend for the past four years. This company's dividend has been unstable, and with a relatively short history, we think it's a little soon to draw strong conclusions about its long term dividend potential. During the past four-year period, the first annual payment was NT$2.5 in 2017, compared to NT$2.0 last year. The dividend has shrunk at around 5.4% a year during that period. Kanpai's dividend hasn't shrunk linearly at 5.4% per annum, but the CAGR is a useful estimate of the historical rate of change.

A shrinking dividend over a four-year period is not ideal, and we'd be concerned about investing in a dividend stock that lacks a solid record of growing dividends per share.

Dividend Growth Potential

With a relatively unstable dividend, and a poor history of shrinking dividends, it's even more important to see if EPS are growing. Kanpai's EPS have fallen by approximately 14% per year during the past five years. With this kind of significant decline, we always wonder what has changed in the business. Dividends are about stability, and Kanpai's earnings per share, which support the dividend, have been anything but stable.

Conclusion

To summarise, shareholders should always check that Kanpai's dividends are affordable, that its dividend payments are relatively stable, and that it has decent prospects for growing its earnings and dividend. We're a bit uncomfortable with its high payout ratio, although at least the dividend was covered by free cash flow. Earnings per share are down, and Kanpai's dividend has been cut at least once in the past, which is disappointing. With this information in mind, we think Kanpai may not be an ideal dividend stock.

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. For example, we've picked out 4 warning signs for Kanpai 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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