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Should You Buy WestRock Company (NYSE:WRK) For Its Dividend?
Dividend paying stocks like WestRock Company (NYSE:WRK) tend to be popular with investors, and for good reason - some research suggests a significant amount of all stock market returns come from reinvested dividends. 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.
While WestRock's 1.6% dividend yield is not the highest, we think its lengthy payment history is quite interesting. Remember though, due to the recent spike in its share price, WestRock's yield will look lower, even though the market may now be factoring in an improvement in its long-term prospects. Some simple analysis can offer a lot of insights when buying a company for its dividend, and we'll go through this below.
Explore this interactive chart for our latest analysis on WestRock!
Payout ratios
Dividends are usually paid out of company earnings. If a company is paying more than it earns, then the dividend might become unsustainable - hardly an ideal situation. So we need to form a view on if a company's dividend is sustainable, relative to its net profit after tax. Although WestRock pays a dividend, it was loss-making during the past year. When a company is loss-making, we next need to check to see if its cash flows can support the dividend.
WestRock's cash payout ratio last year was 13%, which is quite low and suggests that the dividend was thoroughly covered by cash flow.
Remember, you can always get a snapshot of WestRock's latest financial position, by checking our visualisation of its financial health.
Dividend Volatility
Before buying a stock for its income, we want to see if the dividends have been stable in the past, and if the company has a track record of maintaining its dividend. For the purpose of this article, we only scrutinise the last decade of WestRock's dividend payments. Its dividend payments have declined on at least one occasion over the past 10 years. During the past 10-year period, the first annual payment was US$0.3 in 2011, compared to US$1.0 last year. Dividends per share have grown at approximately 12% per year over this time. WestRock's dividend payments have fluctuated, so it hasn't grown 12% every year, but the CAGR is a useful rule of thumb for approximating the historical growth.
WestRock has grown distributions at a rapid rate despite cutting the dividend at least once in the past. Companies that cut once often cut again, but it might be worth considering if the business has turned a corner.
Dividend Growth Potential
With a relatively unstable dividend, it's even more important to see if earnings per share (EPS) are growing. Why take the risk of a dividend getting cut, unless there's a good chance of bigger dividends in future? Over the past five years, it looks as though WestRock's EPS have declined at around 14% a year. With this kind of significant decline, we always wonder what has changed in the business. Dividends are about stability, and WestRock's earnings per share, which support the dividend, have been anything but stable.
Conclusion
To summarise, shareholders should always check that WestRock'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 the company paying a dividend while being loss-making, although at least the dividend was covered by free cash flow. Second, earnings per share have been in decline, and its dividend has been cut at least once in the past. In summary, WestRock has a number of shortcomings that we'd find it hard to get past. Things could change, but we think there are likely more attractive alternatives out there.
Market movements attest to how highly valued a consistent dividend policy is compared to one which is more unpredictable. Still, investors need to consider a host of other factors, apart from dividend payments, when analysing a company. Case in point: We've spotted 5 warning signs for WestRock (of which 1 is a bit unpleasant!) you should know about.
Looking for more high-yielding dividend ideas? Try our curated list of dividend stocks with a yield above 3%.
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What are the risks and opportunities for WestRock?
WestRock Company, together with its subsidiaries, provides fiber-based paper and packaging solutions in North America, South America, Europe, Asia, and Australia.
Rewards
Trading at 60% below our estimate of its fair value
Earnings are forecast to grow 6.1% per year
Earnings grew by 12.7% over the past year
Risks
Significant insider selling over the past 3 months
Large one-off items impacting financial results
Has a high level of debt
Further research on
WestRock
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.
*Interactive Brokers Rated Lowest Cost Broker by StockBrokers.com Annual Online Review 2020
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About NYSE:WRK
WestRock
WestRock Company, together with its subsidiaries, provides fiber-based paper and packaging solutions in North America, South America, Europe, Asia, and Australia.
Undervalued average dividend payer.
