The board of Toyo Tanso Co., Ltd. (TSE:5310) has announced that it will be paying its dividend of ¥120.00 on the 31st of March, an increased payment from last year's comparable dividend. The payment will take the dividend yield to 2.2%, which is in line with the average for the industry.
Check out our latest analysis for Toyo Tanso
Solid dividend yields are great, but they only really help us if the payment is sustainable. Based on the last payment, Toyo Tanso was paying only paying out a fraction of earnings, but the payment was a massive 151% of cash flows. While the business may be attempting to set a balanced dividend policy, a cash payout ratio this high might expose the dividend to being cut if the business ran into some challenges.
Over the next year, EPS is forecast to expand by 11.2%. If the dividend continues on this path, the payout ratio could be 31% by next year, which we think can be pretty sustainable going forward.
Even over a long history of paying dividends, the company's distributions have been remarkably stable. Since 2014, the annual payment back then was ¥22.00, compared to the most recent full-year payment of ¥120.00. This means that it has been growing its distributions at 18% per annum over that time. So, dividends have been growing pretty quickly, and even more impressively, they haven't experienced any notable falls during this period.
Some investors will be chomping at the bit to buy some of the company's stock based on its dividend history. Toyo Tanso has impressed us by growing EPS at 15% per year over the past five years. Growth in EPS bodes well for the dividend, as does the low payout ratio that the company is currently reporting.
Overall, this is probably not a great income stock, even though the dividend is being raised at the moment. While the low payout ratio is a redeeming feature, this is offset by the minimal cash to cover the payments. We would probably look elsewhere for an income investment.
Investors generally tend to favour companies with a consistent, stable dividend policy as opposed to those operating an irregular one. At the same time, there are other factors our readers should be conscious of before pouring capital into a stock. For example, we've picked out 1 warning sign for Toyo Tanso that investors should know about before committing capital to this stock. Is Toyo Tanso not quite the opportunity you were looking for? Why not check out our selection of top dividend stocks.
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