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NAHL Group plc (LON:NAH) stock is about to trade ex-dividend in 2 days time. If you purchase the stock on or after the 26th of September, you won't be eligible to receive this dividend, when it is paid on the 31st of October.
NAHL Group's upcoming dividend is UK£0.03 a share, following on from the last 12 months, when the company distributed a total of UK£0.09 per share to shareholders. Calculating the last year's worth of payments shows that NAHL Group has a trailing yield of 7.3% on the current share price of £1.215. We love seeing companies pay a dividend, but it's also important to be sure that laying the golden eggs isn't going to kill our golden goose! That's why we should always check whether the dividend payments appear sustainable, and if the company is growing.
Check out our latest analysis for NAHL Group
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. Its dividend payout ratio is 86% of profit, which means the company is paying out a majority of its earnings. The relatively limited profit reinvestment could slow the rate of future earnings growth We'd be concerned if earnings began to decline. That said, even highly profitable companies sometimes might not generate enough cash to pay the dividend, which is why we should always check if the dividend is covered by cash flow. Over the last year it paid out 66% of its free cash flow as dividends, within the usual range for most companies.
It's positive to see that NAHL Group's dividend is covered by both profits and cash flow, since this is generally a sign that the dividend is sustainable, and a lower payout ratio usually suggests a greater margin of safety before the dividend gets cut.
Click here to see the company's payout ratio, plus analyst estimates of its future dividends.
Have Earnings And Dividends Been Growing?
Businesses with shrinking earnings are tricky from a dividend perspective. If earnings decline and the company is forced to cut its dividend, investors could watch the value of their investment go up in smoke. With that in mind, we're discomforted by NAHL Group's 17% per annum decline in earnings in the past five years. Such a sharp decline casts doubt on the future sustainability of the dividend.
Many investors will assess a company's dividend performance by evaluating how much the dividend payments have changed over time. NAHL Group's dividend payments per share have declined at 2.3% per year on average over the past five years, which is uninspiring. It's never nice to see earnings and dividends falling, but at least management has cut the dividend rather than potentially risk the company's health in an attempt to maintain it.