Mainland Headwear Holdings Limited (HKG:1100) stock is about to trade ex-dividend in 2 days time. This means that investors who purchase shares on or after the 27th of May will not receive the dividend, which will be paid on the 22nd of June.

Mainland Headwear Holdings's next dividend payment will be HK$0.03 per share, and in the last 12 months, the company paid a total of HK$0.05 per share. Calculating the last year's worth of payments shows that Mainland Headwear Holdings has a trailing yield of 7.5% on the current share price of HK$0.67. Dividends are a major contributor to investment returns for long term holders, but only if the dividend continues to be paid. That's why we should always check whether the dividend payments appear sustainable, and if the company is growing.

View our latest analysis for Mainland Headwear Holdings

Dividends are usually paid out of company profits, so if a company pays out more than it earned then its dividend is usually at greater risk of being cut. Mainland Headwear Holdings paid out a comfortable 36% of its profit last year. Yet cash flows are even more important than profits for assessing a dividend, so we need to see if the company generated enough cash to pay its distribution. Over the past year it paid out 119% of its free cash flow as dividends, which is uncomfortably high. We're curious about why the company paid out more cash than it generated last year, since this can be one of the early signs that a dividend may be unsustainable.

Mainland Headwear Holdings paid out less in dividends than it reported in profits, but unfortunately it didn't generate enough cash to cover the dividend. Were this to happen repeatedly, this would be a risk to Mainland Headwear Holdings's ability to maintain its dividend.

Click here to see how much of its profit Mainland Headwear Holdings paid out over the last 12 months.

Have Earnings And Dividends Been Growing?

Companies with consistently growing earnings per share generally make the best dividend stocks, as they usually find it easier to grow dividends per share. Investors love dividends, so if earnings fall and the dividend is reduced, expect a stock to be sold off heavily at the same time. For this reason, we're glad to see Mainland Headwear Holdings's earnings per share have risen 11% per annum over the last five years. Earnings have been growing at a decent rate, but we're concerned dividend payments consumed most of the company's cash flow over the past year.

The main way most investors will assess a company's dividend prospects is by checking the historical rate of dividend growth. In the last ten years, Mainland Headwear Holdings has lifted its dividend by approximately 2.3% a year on average. It's good to see both earnings and the dividend have improved - although the former has been rising much quicker than the latter, possibly due to the company reinvesting more of its profits in growth.