Attention dividend hunters! Vedan International (Holdings) Limited (HKG:2317) will be distributing its dividend of US$0.023 per share on the 28 September 2018, and will start trading ex-dividend in 4 days time on the 10 September 2018. 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 Vedan International (Holdings)’s most recent financial data to examine its dividend characteristics in more detail.

View our latest analysis for Vedan International (Holdings)

5 questions I ask before picking a dividend stock

If you are a dividend investor, you should always assess these five key metrics:

• Is it the top 25% annual dividend yield payer?

• Has its dividend been stable over the past (i.e. no missed payments or significant payout cuts)?

• Has the amount of dividend per share grown over the past?

• Is its earnings sufficient to payout dividend at the current rate?

• Will it be able to continue to payout at the current rate in the future?

How does Vedan International (Holdings) fare?

The current trailing twelve-month payout ratio for the stock is 60.1%, which means that the dividend is covered by earnings. Furthermore, analysts have not forecasted a dividends per share for the future, which makes it hard to determine the yield shareholders should expect, and whether the current payout is sustainable, moving forward.

If dividend is a key criteria in your investment consideration, then you need to make sure the dividend stock you’re eyeing out is reliable in its payments. Whilst its per-share payments have increased during the past 10 years, there has been some hiccups. Investors have seen reductions in the dividend per share in the past, although, it has picked up again.

Compared to its peers, Vedan International (Holdings) produces a yield of 7.6%, which is high for Food stocks.

Next Steps:

Considering the dividend attributes we analyzed above, Vedan International (Holdings) is definitely worth keeping an eye on for someone looking to build a dedicated income portfolio. 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 important aspects you should further examine:

1. Future Outlook: What are well-informed industry analysts predicting for 2317’s future growth? Take a look at our free research report of analyst consensus for 2317’s outlook.

2. Historical Performance: What has 2317’s returns been like over the past? Go into more detail in the past track record analysis and take a look at the free visual representations of our analysis for more clarity.

3. Other Dividend Rockstars: Are there better dividend payers with stronger fundamentals out there? Check out our free list of these great stocks here.

To help readers see past the short term volatility of the financial market, we aim to bring you a long-term focused research analysis purely driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis does not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements.

The author is an independent contributor and at the time of publication had no position in the stocks mentioned. For errors that warrant correction please contact the editor at editorial-team@simplywallst.com.