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Regular readers will know that we love our dividends at Simply Wall St, which is why it's exciting to see Brookline Bancorp, Inc. (NASDAQ:BRKL) is about to trade ex-dividend in the next 3 days. This means that investors who purchase shares on or after the 13th of February will not receive the dividend, which will be paid on the 28th of February.
Brookline Bancorp's next dividend payment will be US$0.12 per share, and in the last 12 months, the company paid a total of US$0.46 per share. Calculating the last year's worth of payments shows that Brookline Bancorp has a trailing yield of 2.9% on the current share price of $15.59. 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 Brookline Bancorp
If a company pays out more in dividends than it earned, then the dividend might become unsustainable - hardly an ideal situation. Brookline Bancorp paid out a comfortable 41% of its profit last year.
Generally speaking, the lower a company's payout ratios, the more resilient its dividend usually is.
Click here to see the company's payout ratio, plus analyst estimates of its future dividends.
Have Earnings And Dividends Been Growing?
Businesses with strong growth prospects usually make the best dividend payers, because it's easier to grow dividends when earnings per share are improving. 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 Brookline Bancorp's earnings per share have risen 12% per annum over the last five years.
Another key way to measure a company's dividend prospects is by measuring its historical rate of dividend growth. Brookline Bancorp's dividend payments per share have declined at 1.6% per year on average over the past ten years, which is uninspiring.
Final Takeaway
Has Brookline Bancorp got what it takes to maintain its dividend payments? When companies are growing rapidly and retaining a majority of the profits within the business, it's usually a sign that reinvesting earnings creates more value than paying dividends to shareholders. This strategy can add significant value to shareholders over the long term - as long as it's done without issuing too many new shares. Brookline Bancorp ticks a lot of boxes for us from a dividend perspective, and we think these characteristics should mark the company as deserving of further attention.