Yahoo Finance Should You Buy Rio Tinto Group (LON:RIO) For Its Upcoming Dividend In 3 Days?
It looks like Rio Tinto Group (LON:RIO) is about to go ex-dividend in the next 3 days. This means that investors who purchase shares on or after the 8th of August will not receive the dividend, which will be paid on the 19th of September.
Rio Tinto Group's next dividend payment will be US$1.73 per share. Last year, in total, the company distributed US$2.82 to shareholders. Based on the last year's worth of payments, Rio Tinto Group stock has a trailing yield of around 5.3% on the current share price of £43.865. Dividends are an important source of income to many shareholders, but the health of the business is crucial to maintaining those dividends. We need to see whether the dividend is covered by earnings and if it's growing.
See our latest analysis for Rio Tinto Group
If a company pays out more in dividends than it earned, then the dividend might become unsustainable - hardly an ideal situation. Rio Tinto Group paid out a comfortable 37% of its profit last year. 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. Over the past year it paid out 120% of its free cash flow as dividends, which is uncomfortably high. It's hard to consistently pay out more cash than you generate without either borrowing or using company cash, so we'd wonder how the company justifies this payout level.
While Rio Tinto Group's dividends were covered by the company's reported profits, cash is somewhat more important, so it's not great to see that the company didn't generate enough cash to pay its dividend. Cash is king, as they say, and were Rio Tinto Group 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.
Have Earnings And Dividends Been Growing?
Stocks in companies that generate sustainable earnings growth often make the best dividend prospects, as it is easier to lift the dividend when earnings are rising. 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's why it's comforting to see Rio Tinto Group's earnings have been skyrocketing, up 32% per annum for the past five years. Earnings have been growing quickly, 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 10 years, Rio Tinto Group has increased its dividend at approximately 6.4% a year on average. We're glad to see dividends rising alongside earnings over a number of years, which may be a sign the company intends to share the growth with shareholders.
To Sum It Up
Is Rio Tinto Group worth buying for its dividend? We're glad to see the company has been improving its earnings per share while also paying out a low percentage of income. However, it's not great to see it paying out what we see as an uncomfortably high percentage of its cash flow. In summary, while it has some positive characteristics, we're not inclined to race out and buy Rio Tinto Group today.
Wondering what the future holds for Rio Tinto Group? See what the 24 analysts we track are forecasting, with this visualisation of its historical and future estimated earnings and cash flow
A common investment mistake is buying the first interesting stock you see. Here you can find a list of promising dividend stocks with a greater than 2% yield and an upcoming dividend.
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If you spot an error that warrants correction, please contact the editor at editorial-team@simplywallst.com. 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. Thank you for reading.
