Should You Buy Kuobrothers Corp. (GTSM:8477) For Its Dividend?

Today we'll take a closer look at Kuobrothers Corp. (GTSM:8477) 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. If you are hoping to live on the income from dividends, it's important to be a lot more stringent with your investments than the average punter.

With a goodly-sized dividend yield despite a relatively short payment history, investors might be wondering if Kuobrothers is a new dividend aristocrat in the making. We'd agree the yield does look enticing. Some simple analysis can reduce the risk of holding Kuobrothers for its dividend, and we'll focus on the most important aspects below.

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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. So we need to form a view on if a company's dividend is sustainable, relative to its net profit after tax. Looking at the data, we can see that 110% of Kuobrothers' profits were paid out as dividends in the last 12 months. Unless there are extenuating circumstances, from the perspective of an investor who hopes to own the company for many years, a payout ratio of above 100% is definitely a concern.

In addition to comparing dividends against profits, we should inspect whether the company generated enough cash to pay its dividend. Unfortunately, while Kuobrothers pays a dividend, it also reported negative free cash flow last year. While there may be a good reason for this, it's not ideal from a dividend perspective.

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

Remember, you can always get a snapshot of Kuobrothers' latest financial position, by checking our visualisation of its financial health.

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. Kuobrothers has been paying a dividend for the past five years. During the past five-year period, the first annual payment was NT$1.0 in 2015, compared to NT$1.4 last year. Dividends per share have grown at approximately 5.7% per year over this time. Kuobrothers' dividend payments have fluctuated, so it hasn't grown 5.7% every year, but the CAGR is a useful rule of thumb for approximating the historical growth.

It's good to see the dividend growing at a decent rate, but the dividend has been cut at least once in the past. Kuobrothers might have put its house in order since then, but we remain cautious.

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. It's not great to see that Kuobrothers' have fallen at approximately 6.4% over the past five years. Declining earnings per share over a number of years is not a great sign for the dividend investor. Without some improvement, this does not bode well for the long term value of a company's dividend.

Conclusion

To summarise, shareholders should always check that Kuobrothers' 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 Kuobrothers paying out a high percentage of both its cashflow and earnings. Earnings per share are down, and Kuobrothers' dividend has been cut at least once in the past, which is disappointing. Using these criteria, Kuobrothers 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 identified 3 warning signs for Kuobrothers (1 shouldn't be ignored!) that you should be aware of before investing.

We have also put together a list of global stocks with a market capitalisation above $1bn and yielding more 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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