The board of Prestige International Inc. (TSE:4290) has announced that it will pay a dividend on the 10th of June, with investors receiving ¥13.00 per share. This will take the dividend yield to an attractive 3.8%, providing a nice boost to shareholder returns.
While it is great to have a strong dividend yield, we should also consider whether the payment is sustainable. Prior to this announcement, Prestige International's dividend was comfortably covered by both cash flow and earnings. This means that a large portion of its earnings are being retained to grow the business.
Over the next year, EPS is forecast to expand by 8.8%. If the dividend continues along recent trends, we estimate the payout ratio will be 68%, which is in the range that makes us comfortable with the sustainability of the dividend.
View our latest analysis for Prestige International
While the company has been paying a dividend for a long time, it has cut the dividend at least once in the last 10 years. Since 2015, the dividend has gone from ¥2.50 total annually to ¥26.00. This means that it has been growing its distributions at 26% per annum over that time. Despite the rapid growth in the dividend over the past number of years, we have seen the payments go down the past as well, so that makes us cautious.
Given that the dividend has been cut in the past, we need to check if earnings are growing and if that might lead to stronger dividends in the future. Prestige International has seen EPS rising for the last five years, at 9.5% per annum. Shareholders are getting plenty of the earnings returned to them, which combined with strong growth makes this quite appealing.
Overall, a dividend increase is always good, and we think that Prestige International is a strong income stock thanks to its track record and growing earnings. Distributions are quite easily covered by earnings, which are also being converted to cash flows. Taking this all into consideration, this looks like it could be a good dividend opportunity.
Market movements attest to how highly valued a consistent dividend policy is compared to one which is more unpredictable. However, there are other things to consider for investors when analysing stock performance. For example, we've picked out 1 warning sign for Prestige International that investors should know about before committing capital to this stock. If you are a dividend investor, you might also want to look at our curated list of high yield dividend stocks.
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