Is Singapore Press Holdings Limited (SGX:T39) A Risky Dividend Stock?
Simply Wall St
Could Singapore Press Holdings Limited (SGX:T39) be an attractive dividend share to own for the long haul? Investors are often drawn to strong companies with the idea of reinvesting the dividends. On the other hand, investors have been known to buy a stock because of its yield, and then lose money if the company's dividend doesn't live up to expectations.
With Singapore Press Holdings yielding 5.6% and having paid a dividend for over 10 years, many investors likely find the company quite interesting. It would not be a surprise to discover that many investors buy it for the dividends. Before you buy any stock for its dividend however, you should always remember Warren Buffett's two rules: 1) Don't lose money, and 2) Remember rule #1. We'll run through some checks below to help with this.
SGX:T39 Historical Dividend Yield, January 4th 2020
Payout ratios
Dividends are usually paid out of company earnings. If a company is paying more than it earns, then the dividend might become unsustainable - hardly an ideal situation. Comparing dividend payments to a company's net profit after tax is a simple way of reality-checking whether a dividend is sustainable. In the last year, Singapore Press Holdings paid out 83% of its profit as dividends. Paying out a majority of its earnings limits the amount that can be reinvested in the business. This may indicate a commitment to paying a dividend, or a dearth of investment opportunities.
In addition to comparing dividends against profits, we should inspect whether the company generated enough cash to pay its dividend. Singapore Press Holdings paid out 127% of its free cash last year. Cash flows can be lumpy, but this dividend was not well covered by cash flow. While Singapore Press Holdings's dividends were covered by the company's reported profits, free cash flow is somewhat more important, so it's not great to see that the company didn't generate enough cash to pay its dividend. Cash is king, as they say, and were Singapore Press Holdings to repeatedly pay dividends that aren't well covered by cashflow, we would consider this a warning sign.
Is Singapore Press Holdings's Balance Sheet Risky?
As Singapore Press Holdings has a meaningful amount of debt, we need to check its balance sheet to see if the company might have debt risks. A rough way to check this is with these two simple ratios: a) net debt divided by EBITDA (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation), and b) net interest cover. Net debt to EBITDA measures total debt load relative to company earnings (lower = less debt), while net interest cover measures the ability to pay interest on the debt (higher = greater ability to pay interest costs). Singapore Press Holdings is carrying net debt of 4.99 times its EBITDA, which is getting towards the upper limit of our comfort range on a dividend stock that the investor hopes will endure a wide range of economic circumstances.
We calculated its interest cover by measuring its earnings before interest and tax (EBIT), and dividing this by the company's net interest expense. Net interest cover of 6.54 times its interest expense appears reasonable for Singapore Press Holdings, although we're conscious that even high interest cover doesn't make a company bulletproof.
From the perspective of an income investor who wants to earn dividends for many years, there is not much point buying a stock if its dividend is regularly cut or is not reliable. For the purpose of this article, we only scrutinise the last decade of Singapore Press Holdings's dividend payments. This dividend has been unstable, which we define as having fallen by at least 20% one or more times over this time. During the past ten-year period, the first annual payment was S$0.16 in 2010, compared to S$0.12 last year. This works out to be a decline of approximately 2.8% per year over that time. Singapore Press Holdings's dividend hasn't shrunk linearly at 2.8% per annum, but the CAGR is a useful estimate of the historical rate of change.
We struggle to make a case for buying Singapore Press Holdings for its dividend, given that payments have shrunk over the past ten years.
Dividend Growth Potential
With a relatively unstable dividend, it's even more important to evaluate if earnings per share (EPS) are growing - it's not worth taking the risk on a dividend getting cut, unless you might be rewarded with larger dividends in future. Singapore Press Holdings's earnings per share have shrunk at 12% a year over the past five years. A sharp decline in earnings per share is not great from from a dividend perspective, as even conservative payout ratios can come under pressure if earnings fall far enough.
We'd also point out that Singapore Press Holdings issued a meaningful number of new shares in the past year. Regularly issuing new shares can be detrimental - it's hard to grow dividends per share when new shares are regularly being created.
Conclusion
When we look at a dividend stock, we need to form a judgement on whether the dividend will grow, if the company is able to maintain it in a wide range of economic circumstances, and if the dividend payout is sustainable. First, the company has a payout ratio that was within an average range for most dividend stocks, but it paid out virtually all of its generated cash flow. Second, earnings per share have been in decline, and its dividend has been cut at least once in the past. Using these criteria, Singapore Press Holdings looks quite suboptimal from a dividend investment perspective.
Without at least some growth in earnings per share over time, the dividend will eventually come under pressure either from costs or inflation. See if the 5 analysts are forecasting a turnaround in our free collection of analyst estimates here.
If you spot an error that warrants correction, please contact the editor at editorial-team@simplywallst.com. This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. Simply Wall St has no position in the stocks mentioned.
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