Scales Corporation Limited

(

NZSE:SCL

) stock is my sourdough starter separatedabout to trade ex-dividend in 4 days time. You can purchase shares before the 6th of January in order to receive the dividend, which the company will pay on the 17th of January.

Scales's next dividend payment will be NZ$0.11 per share. Last year, in total, the company distributed NZ$0.19 to shareholders. Looking at the last 12 months of distributions, Scales has a trailing yield of approximately 3.8% on its current stock price of NZ$5.01. Dividends are an important source of income to many shareholders, but the health of the business is crucial to maintaining those dividends. So we need to check whether the dividend payments are covered, and if earnings are growing.

View our latest analysis for Scales

Dividends are typically paid out of company income, so if a company pays out more than it earned, its dividend is usually at a higher risk of being cut. Fortunately Scales's payout ratio is modest, at just 29% of profit. That said, even highly profitable companies sometimes might not generate enough cash to pay the dividend, which is why we should always check if the dividend is covered by cash flow. Over the past year it paid out 161% of its free cash flow as dividends, which is uncomfortably high. We're curious about why the company paid out more cash than it generated last year, since this can be one of the early signs that a dividend may be unsustainable.

Scales paid out less in dividends than it reported in profits, but unfortunately it didn't generate enough cash to cover the dividend. Cash is king, as they say, and were Scales to repeatedly pay dividends that aren't well covered by cashflow, we would consider this a warning sign.

Click

here to see the company's payout ratio, plus analyst estimates of its future dividends.

NZSE:SCL Historical Dividend Yield, January 1st 2020

Have Earnings And Dividends Been Growing?

Businesses with strong growth prospects usually make the best dividend payers, because it's easier to grow dividends when earnings per share are improving. Investors love dividends, so if earnings fall and the dividend is reduced, expect a stock to be sold off heavily at the same time. Fortunately for readers, Scales's earnings per share have been growing at 16% a year for the past five years. Earnings have been growing at a decent rate, but we're concerned dividend payments consumed most of the company's cash flow over the past year.

Many investors will assess a company's dividend performance by evaluating how much the dividend payments have changed over time. In the past five years, Scales has increased its dividend at approximately 14% a year on average. It's great to see earnings per share growing rapidly over several years, and dividends per share growing right along with it.

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To Sum It Up

Is Scales worth buying for its dividend? We like that Scales has been successfully growing its earnings per share at a nice rate and reinvesting most of its profits in the business. However, we note the high cashflow payout ratio with some concern. Overall, it's hard to get excited about Scales from a dividend perspective.

Ever wonder what the future holds for Scales? See what the three analysts we track are forecasting,

with this visualisation of its historical and future estimated earnings and cash flow

We wouldn't recommend just buying the first dividend stock you see, though. Here's

a list of interesting dividend stocks with a greater than 2% yield and an upcoming dividend.

If you spot an error that warrants correction, please contact the editor at

[email protected]

. 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. Simply Wall St has no position in the stocks mentioned.

We aim to bring you long-term focused research analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Thank you for reading.

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