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WH Smith PLC (LON:SMWH) is about to trade ex-dividend in the next 3 days. If you purchase the stock on or after the 9th of January, you won't be eligible to receive this dividend, when it is paid on the 30th of January.
WH Smith's upcoming dividend is UK£0.41 a share, following on from the last 12 months, when the company distributed a total of UK£0.58 per share to shareholders. Based on the last year's worth of payments, WH Smith stock has a trailing yield of around 2.2% on the current share price of £26.04. If you buy this business for its dividend, you should have an idea of whether WH Smith's dividend is reliable and sustainable. So we need to check whether the dividend payments are covered, and if earnings are growing.
View our latest analysis for WH Smith
If a company pays out more in dividends than it earned, then the dividend might become unsustainable - hardly an ideal situation. WH Smith is paying out an acceptable 59% of its profit, a common payout level among most companies. Yet cash flow is typically more important than profit for assessing dividend sustainability, so we should always check if the company generated enough cash to afford its dividend. Over the last year it paid out 67% of its free cash flow as dividends, within the usual range for most companies.
It's positive to see that WH Smith's dividend is covered by both profits and cash flow, since this is generally a sign that the dividend is sustainable, and a lower payout ratio usually suggests a greater margin of safety before the dividend gets cut.
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. Investors love dividends, so if earnings fall and the dividend is reduced, expect a stock to be sold off heavily at the same time. This is why it's a relief to see WH Smith earnings per share are up 4.9% per annum over the last five years. Earnings per share growth has been slim, and the company is already paying out a majority of its earnings. While there is some room to both increase the payout ratio and reinvest in the business, generally the higher a payout ratio goes, the lower a company's prospects for future growth.
Another key way to measure a company's dividend prospects is by measuring its historical rate of dividend growth. In the past ten years, WH Smith has increased its dividend at approximately 14% a year on average. It's encouraging to see the company lifting dividends while earnings are growing, suggesting at least some corporate interest in rewarding shareholders.