The board of The San-in Godo Bank,Ltd. (TSE:8381) has announced that it will be paying its dividend of ¥28.00 on the 9th of December, an increased payment from last year's comparable dividend. This will take the annual payment to 4.1% of the stock price, which is above what most companies in the industry pay.
We like to see robust dividend yields, but that doesn't matter if the payment isn't sustainable.
Having distributed dividends for at least 10 years, San-in Godo BankLtd has a long history of paying out a part of its earnings to shareholders. Taking data from its last earnings report, calculating for the company's payout ratio shows 42%, which means that San-in Godo BankLtd would be able to pay its last dividend without pressure on the balance sheet.
If the trend of the last few years continues, EPS will grow by 14.3% over the next 12 months. If the dividend continues along recent trends, we estimate the future payout ratio will be 45%, which is in the range that makes us comfortable with the sustainability of the dividend.
Check out our latest analysis for San-in Godo BankLtd
The company has a long dividend track record, but it doesn't look great with cuts in the past. Since 2015, the annual payment back then was ¥14.00, compared to the most recent full-year payment of ¥56.00. This means that it has been growing its distributions at 15% per annum over that time. Despite the rapid growth in the dividend over the past number of years, we have seen the payments go down the past as well, so that makes us cautious.
With a relatively unstable dividend, it's even more important to evaluate if earnings per share is growing, which could point to a growing dividend in the future. We are encouraged to see that San-in Godo BankLtd has grown earnings per share at 14% per year over the past five years. Shareholders are getting plenty of the earnings returned to them, which combined with strong growth makes this quite appealing.
Overall, we think this could be an attractive income stock, and it is only getting better by paying a higher dividend this year. The company is easily earning enough to cover its dividend payments and it is great to see that these earnings are being translated into cash flow. All in all, this checks a lot of the boxes we look for when choosing an income 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. As an example, we've identified 1 warning sign for San-in Godo BankLtd that you should be aware of before investing. Is San-in Godo BankLtd not quite the opportunity you were looking for? Why not check out our selection of top dividend stocks.
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