Shares of GVC Holdings PLC (LON:GVC) will begin trading ex-dividend in 2 days. To qualify for the dividend check of UK£0.16 per share, investors must have owned the shares prior to 20 September 2018, which is the last day the company’s management will finalize their list of shareholders to which they will send dividend payments. Is this future income stream a compelling catalyst for dividend investors to think about the stock as an investment today? Let’s take a look at GVC Holdings’s most recent financial data to examine its dividend characteristics in more detail.
Check out our latest analysis for GVC Holdings
5 checks you should do on a dividend stock
When assessing a stock as a potential addition to my dividend Portfolio, I look at these five areas:
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Does it pay an annual yield higher than 75% of dividend payers?
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Has it paid dividend every year without dramatically reducing payout in the past?
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Has the amount of dividend per share grown over the past?
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Can it afford to pay the current rate of dividends from its earnings?
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Will the company be able to keep paying dividend based on the future earnings growth?
How does GVC Holdings fare?
GVC Holdings has a trailing twelve-month payout ratio of 103%, meaning the dividend is not sufficiently covered by its earnings. In the near future, analysts are predicting a more sensible payout ratio of 45.8%, leading to a dividend yield of 3.6%. Moreover, EPS should increase to £0.63, meaning that the lower payout ratio does not necessarily implicate a lower dividend payment.
When thinking about whether a dividend is sustainable, another factor to consider is the cash flow. A business with strong cash flow can sustain a higher divided payout ratio than a company with weak cash flow.
If there is one thing that you want to be reliable in your life, it’s dividend stocks and their constant income stream. Whilst its per-share payments have increased during the past 10 years, there has been some hiccups. Shareholders would have seen a few years of reduced payments in this time.
Relative to peers, GVC Holdings has a yield of 3.1%, which is high for Hospitality stocks but still below the market’s top dividend payers.
Next Steps:
Taking all the above into account, GVC Holdings is a complicated pick for dividend investors given that there are a couple of positive things about it as well as negative. But if you are not exclusively a dividend investor, the stock could still be an interesting investment opportunity. Given that this is purely a dividend analysis, I recommend taking sufficient time to understand its core business and determine whether the company and its investment properties suit your overall goals. I’ve put together three essential aspects you should further research: