Yahoo Finance Duke Royalty (LON:DUKE) Has Affirmed Its Dividend Of £0.007
The board of Duke Royalty Limited (LON:DUKE) has announced that it will pay a dividend on the 12th of January, with investors receiving £0.007 per share. Based on this payment, the dividend yield on the company's stock will be 8.5%, which is an attractive boost to shareholder returns.
View our latest analysis for Duke Royalty
Duke Royalty's Earnings Easily Cover The Distributions
Impressive dividend yields are good, but this doesn't matter much if the payments can't be sustained. Prior to this announcement, Duke Royalty's dividend was making up a very large proportion of earnings, and the company was also not generating any cash flow to offset this. We think that this practice can make the dividend quite risky in the future.
Over the next year, EPS is forecast to expand by 23.2%. If the dividend continues along recent trends, we estimate the payout ratio could reach 80%, which is on the higher side, but certainly still feasible.
Duke Royalty's Dividend Has Lacked Consistency
Looking back, Duke Royalty's dividend hasn't been particularly consistent. This suggests that the dividend might not be the most reliable. The annual payment during the last 6 years was £0.0196 in 2017, and the most recent fiscal year payment was £0.028. This works out to be a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of approximately 6.1% a year over that time. It's good to see the dividend growing at a decent rate, but the dividend has been cut at least once in the past. Duke Royalty might have put its house in order since then, but we remain cautious.
Dividend Growth Could Be Constrained
With a relatively unstable dividend, it's even more important to see if earnings per share is growing. Duke Royalty has impressed us by growing EPS at 44% per year over the past five years. However, Duke Royalty isn't reinvesting a lot back into the business, so we wonder how quickly it will be able to grow in the future.
The Dividend Could Prove To Be Unreliable
Overall, it's nice to see a consistent dividend payment, but we think that longer term, the current level of payment might be unsustainable. While we generally think the level of distributions are a bit high, we wouldn't rule it out as becoming a good dividend payer in the future as its earnings are growing healthily. We would be a touch cautious of relying on this stock primarily for the dividend income.
Investors generally tend to favour companies with a consistent, stable dividend policy as opposed to those operating an irregular one. At the same time, there are other factors our readers should be conscious of before pouring capital into a stock. Taking the debate a bit further, we've identified 1 warning sign for Duke Royalty that investors need to be conscious of moving forward. Is Duke Royalty not quite the opportunity you were looking for? Why not check out our selection of top dividend stocks.
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This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. We provide commentary based on historical data and analyst forecasts only using an unbiased methodology and our articles are not intended to be financial advice. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned.
