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Berkshire Hills Bancorp, Inc. (NYSE:BHLB) is about to trade ex-dividend in the next 3 days. You will need to purchase shares before the 13th of February to receive the dividend, which will be paid on the 28th of February.
Berkshire Hills Bancorp's upcoming dividend is US$0.24 a share, following on from the last 12 months, when the company distributed a total of US$0.96 per share to shareholders. Based on the last year's worth of payments, Berkshire Hills Bancorp stock has a trailing yield of around 3.3% on the current share price of $28.89. 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.
See our latest analysis for Berkshire Hills Bancorp
If a company pays out more in dividends than it earned, then the dividend might become unsustainable - hardly an ideal situation. Berkshire Hills Bancorp paid out a comfortable 45% of its profit last year.
When a company paid out less in dividends than it earned in profit, this generally suggests its dividend is affordable. The lower the % of its profit that it pays out, the greater the margin of safety for the dividend if the business enters a downturn.
Click here to see the company's payout ratio, plus analyst estimates of its future dividends.
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. 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 encouraged by the steady growth at Berkshire Hills Bancorp, with earnings per share up 8.4% on average over the last five years.
Many investors will assess a company's dividend performance by evaluating how much the dividend payments have changed over time. Berkshire Hills Bancorp has delivered 4.1% dividend growth per year on average over the past ten years. We're glad to see dividends rising alongside earnings over a number of years, which may be a sign the company intends to share the growth with shareholders.
Final Takeaway
Is Berkshire Hills Bancorp worth buying for its dividend? It has been growing its earnings per share somewhat in recent years, although it reinvests more than half its earnings in the business, which could suggest there are some growth projects that have not yet reached fruition. Berkshire Hills Bancorp ticks a lot of boxes for us from a dividend perspective, and we think these characteristics should mark the company as deserving of further attention.