In This Article:
Glacier Bancorp, Inc. (NASDAQ:GBCI) stock is about to trade ex-dividend in 3 days. You will need to purchase shares before the 9th of October to receive the dividend, which will be paid on the 22nd of October.
Glacier Bancorp's upcoming dividend is US$0.30 a share, following on from the last 12 months, when the company distributed a total of US$1.36 per share to shareholders. Based on the last year's worth of payments, Glacier Bancorp stock has a trailing yield of around 4.2% on the current share price of $33.59. 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! So we need to investigate whether Glacier Bancorp can afford its dividend, and if the dividend could grow.
Check out our latest analysis for Glacier Bancorp
If a company pays out more in dividends than it earned, then the dividend might become unsustainable - hardly an ideal situation. That's why it's good to see Glacier Bancorp paying out a modest 50% of its earnings.
When a company paid out less in dividends than it earned in profit, this generally suggests its dividend is affordable. The lower the % of its profit that it pays out, the greater the margin of safety for the dividend if the business enters a downturn.
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. With that in mind, we're encouraged by the steady growth at Glacier Bancorp, with earnings per share up 9.0% on average over the last five years.
Another key way to measure a company's dividend prospects is by measuring its historical rate of dividend growth. Glacier Bancorp has delivered 10% dividend growth per year on average over the past 10 years. It's encouraging to see the company lifting dividends while earnings are growing, suggesting at least some corporate interest in rewarding shareholders.
Final Takeaway
Should investors buy Glacier Bancorp for the upcoming dividend? It has been growing its earnings per share somewhat in recent years, although it reinvests more than half its earnings in the business, which could suggest there are some growth projects that have not yet reached fruition. Glacier 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.