There's A Lot To Like About Home Bancorp's (NASDAQ:HBCP) Upcoming US$0.22 Dividend

Home Bancorp, Inc. (NASDAQ:HBCP) is about to trade ex-dividend in the next four days. Investors can purchase shares before the 7th of August in order to be eligible for this dividend, which will be paid on the 21st of August.

Home Bancorp's upcoming dividend is US$0.22 a share, following on from the last 12 months, when the company distributed a total of US$0.88 per share to shareholders. Calculating the last year's worth of payments shows that Home Bancorp has a trailing yield of 3.8% on the current share price of $23.38. Dividends are an important source of income to many shareholders, but the health of the business is crucial to maintaining those dividends. As a result, readers should always check whether Home Bancorp has been able to grow its dividends, or if the dividend might be cut.

See our latest analysis for Home Bancorp

If a company pays out more in dividends than it earned, then the dividend might become unsustainable - hardly an ideal situation. Fortunately Home Bancorp's payout ratio is modest, at just 43% of profit.

Generally speaking, the lower a company's payout ratios, the more resilient its dividend usually is.

Click here to see the company's payout ratio, plus analyst estimates of its future dividends.

Have Earnings And Dividends Been Growing?

Businesses with strong growth prospects usually make the best dividend payers, because it's easier to grow dividends when earnings per share are improving. If earnings fall far enough, the company could be forced to cut its dividend. With that in mind, we're encouraged by the steady growth at Home Bancorp, with earnings per share up 5.9% on average over the last five years.

Many investors will assess a company's dividend performance by evaluating how much the dividend payments have changed over time. Home Bancorp has delivered 21% dividend growth per year on average over the past six years. It's encouraging to see the company lifting dividends while earnings are growing, suggesting at least some corporate interest in rewarding shareholders.

To Sum It Up

Is Home Bancorp an attractive dividend stock, or better left on the shelf? Home Bancorp has seen its earnings per share grow slowly in recent years, and the company reinvests more than half of its profits in the business, which generally bodes well for its future prospects. We think this is a pretty attractive combination, and would be interested in investigating Home Bancorp more closely.

So while Home Bancorp looks good from a dividend perspective, it's always worthwhile being up to date with the risks involved in this stock. Every company has risks, and we've spotted 3 warning signs for Home Bancorp (of which 1 is significant!) you should know about.

We wouldn't recommend just buying the first dividend stock you see, though. Here's a list of interesting dividend stocks with a greater than 2% yield and an upcoming dividend.

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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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