Yahoo Finance Is It Worth Considering Carr's Group plc (LON:CARR) For Its Upcoming Dividend?
Carr's Group plc (LON:CARR) stock is about to trade ex-dividend in 4 days. You can purchase shares before the 27th of August in order to receive the dividend, which the company will pay on the 2nd of October.
Carr's Group's next dividend payment will be UK£0.022 per share. Last year, in total, the company distributed UK£0.048 to shareholders. Based on the last year's worth of payments, Carr's Group stock has a trailing yield of around 3.6% on the current share price of £1.3325. If you buy this business for its dividend, you should have an idea of whether Carr's Group's dividend is reliable and sustainable. So we need to investigate whether Carr's Group can afford its dividend, and if the dividend could grow.
See our latest analysis for Carr's Group
Dividends are typically paid from company earnings. If a company pays more in dividends than it earned in profit, then the dividend could be unsustainable. That's why it's good to see Carr's Group paying out a modest 42% of its earnings. Yet cash flows are even more important than profits for assessing a dividend, so we need to see if the company generated enough cash to pay its distribution. Dividends consumed 63% of the company's free cash flow last year, which is within a normal range for most dividend-paying organisations.
It's encouraging to see that the dividend is covered by both profit and cash flow. This generally suggests the dividend is sustainable, as long as earnings don't drop precipitously.
Click here to see the company's payout ratio, plus analyst estimates of its future dividends.
Have Earnings And Dividends Been Growing?
Stocks with flat earnings can still be attractive dividend payers, but it is important to be more conservative with your approach and demand a greater margin for safety when it comes to dividend sustainability. Investors love dividends, so if earnings fall and the dividend is reduced, expect a stock to be sold off heavily at the same time. That explains why we're not overly excited about Carr's Group's flat earnings over the past five years. It's better than seeing them drop, certainly, but over the long term, all of the best dividend stocks are able to meaningfully grow their earnings per share. Earnings growth has been slim and the company is paying out more than half 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. Carr's Group has delivered 7.5% dividend growth per year on average over the past 10 years.
To Sum It Up
From a dividend perspective, should investors buy or avoid Carr's Group? Carr's Group has struggled to grow earnings per share, and it's paying out less than half of its earnings and more than half its cash flow to shareholders as dividends. In summary, it's hard to get excited about Carr's Group from a dividend perspective.
While it's tempting to invest in Carr's Group for the dividends alone, you should always be mindful of the risks involved. Every company has risks, and we've spotted 1 warning sign for Carr's Group you should know about.
If you're in the market for dividend stocks, we recommend checking our list of top dividend stocks with a greater than 2% yield and an upcoming dividend.
This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. 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.
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