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It looks like Consolidated Water Co. Ltd. (NASDAQ:CWCO) is about to go ex-dividend in the next 3 days. Ex-dividend means that investors that purchase the stock on or after the 30th of September will not receive this dividend, which will be paid on the 31st of October.
Consolidated Water's next dividend payment will be US$0.09 per share, and in the last 12 months, the company paid a total of US$0.3 per share. Looking at the last 12 months of distributions, Consolidated Water has a trailing yield of approximately 2.0% on its current stock price of $16.87. 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.
View our latest analysis for Consolidated Water
Dividends are typically paid from company earnings. If a company pays more in dividends than it earned in profit, then the dividend could be unsustainable. Consolidated Water paid out a comfortable 44% 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. Dividends consumed 66% of the company's free cash flow last year, which is within a normal range for most dividend-paying organisations.
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?
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 fall far enough, the company could be forced to cut its dividend. With that in mind, we're encouraged by the steady growth at Consolidated Water, with earnings per share up 5.6% on average over the last five years. Decent historical earnings per share growth suggests Consolidated Water has been effectively growing value for shareholders. However, it's now paying out more than half its earnings as dividends. Therefore it's unlikely that the company will be able to reinvest heavily in its business, which could presage slower growth in the future.
The main way most investors will assess a company's dividend prospects is by checking the historical rate of dividend growth. Consolidated Water has delivered an average of 2.7% per year annual increase in its dividend, based on the past ten years of dividend payments. It's encouraging to see the company lifting dividends while earnings are growing, suggesting at least some corporate interest in rewarding shareholders.