Cohort plc (LON:CHRT) is about to trade ex-dividend in the next 3 days. This means that investors who purchase shares on or after the 13th of August will not receive the dividend, which will be paid on the 18th of September.

Cohort's next dividend payment will be UK£0.069 per share. Last year, in total, the company distributed UK£0.10 to shareholders. Based on the last year's worth of payments, Cohort has a trailing yield of 1.5% on the current stock price of £6.7577. Dividends are an important source of income to many shareholders, but the health of the business is crucial to maintaining those dividends. As a result, readers should always check whether Cohort has been able to grow its dividends, or if the dividend might be cut.

View our latest analysis for Cohort

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. That's why it's good to see Cohort paying out a modest 43% of its earnings. Yet cash flow is typically more important than profit for assessing dividend sustainability, so we should always check if the company generated enough cash to afford its dividend. Thankfully its dividend payments took up just 43% of the free cash flow it generated, which is a comfortable payout ratio.

It's encouraging to see that the dividend is covered by both profit and cash flow. This generally suggests the dividend is sustainable, as long as earnings don't drop precipitously.

Click here to see the company's payout ratio, plus analyst estimates of its future dividends.

Have Earnings And Dividends Been Growing?

Stocks in companies that generate sustainable earnings growth often make the best dividend prospects, as it is easier to lift the dividend when earnings are rising. 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 Cohort's earnings per share have risen 11% per annum over the last five years. Earnings per share are growing rapidly and the company is keeping more than half of its earnings within the business; an attractive combination which could suggest the company is focused on reinvesting to grow earnings further. This will make it easier to fund future growth efforts and we think this is an attractive combination - plus the dividend can always be increased later.

Many investors will assess a company's dividend performance by evaluating how much the dividend payments have changed over time. Since the start of our data, 10 years ago, Cohort has lifted its dividend by approximately 17% a year on average. It's exciting to see that both earnings and dividends per share have grown rapidly over the past few years.