Are You An Income Investor? Don’t Miss Out On Experian plc (LON:EXPN)

Experian plc (LON:EXPN) has pleased shareholders over the past 10 years, paying out an average dividend of 2.00% annually. The company is currently worth UK£16.93b, and now yields roughly 1.76%. Should it have a place in your portfolio? Let’s take a look at Experian in more detail. Check out our latest analysis for Experian

Here’s how I find good dividend stocks

If you are a dividend investor, you should always assess these five key metrics:

• Is its annual yield among the top 25% of dividend-paying companies?

• Has it consistently paid a stable dividend without missing a payment or drastically cutting payout?

• Has dividend per share amount increased over the past?

• Is its earnings sufficient to payout dividend at the current rate?

• Will the company be able to keep paying dividend based on the future earnings growth?

LSE:EXPN Historical Dividend Yield June 21st 18

How does Experian fare?

Experian has a trailing twelve-month payout ratio of 48.56%, which means that the dividend is covered by earnings. In the near future, analysts are predicting a payout ratio of 46.31%, leading to a dividend yield of around 2.04%. Furthermore, EPS should increase to $0.93.

Reliablity is an important factor for dividend stocks, particularly for income investors who want a strong track record of payment and a positive outlook for future payout. In the case of EXPN it has increased its DPS from $0.092 to $0.33 in the past 10 years. During this period it has not missed a payment, as one would expect for a company increasing its dividend. This is an impressive feat, which makes EXPN a true dividend rockstar.

Relative to peers, Experian generates a yield of 1.76%, which is on the low-side for Professional Services stocks.

Next Steps:

With these dividend metrics in mind, I definitely rank Experian as a strong income stock, and is worth further research for anyone who considers dividends an important part of their portfolio strategy. Given that this is purely a dividend analysis, I urge potential investors to try and get a good understanding of the underlying business and its fundamentals before deciding on an investment. Below, I’ve compiled three fundamental factors you should further research:

1. Future Outlook: What are well-informed industry analysts predicting for EXPN’s future growth? Take a look at our free research report of analyst consensus for EXPN’s outlook.

2. Valuation: What is EXPN worth today? Even if the stock is a cash cow, it’s not worth an infinite price. The intrinsic value infographic in our free research report helps visualize whether EXPN is currently mispriced by the market.

3. Other Dividend Rockstars: Are there better dividend payers with stronger fundamentals out there? Check out our free list of these great stocks here.

To help readers see pass the short term volatility of the financial market, we aim to bring you a long-term focused research analysis purely driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis does not factor in the latest price sensitive company announcements.

The author is an independent contributor and at the time of publication had no position in the stocks mentioned.