Yahoo Finance Dividend Investors: Don't Be Too Quick To Buy Freehold Royalties Ltd. (TSE:FRU) For Its Upcoming Dividend
Regular readers will know that we love our dividends at Simply Wall St, which is why it's exciting to see Freehold Royalties Ltd. (TSE:FRU) is about to trade ex-dividend in the next 4 days. Ex-dividend means that investors that purchase the stock on or after the 28th of November will not receive this dividend, which will be paid on the 16th of December.
Freehold Royalties's next dividend payment will be CA$0.052 per share, and in the last 12 months, the company paid a total of CA$0.63 per share. Last year's total dividend payments show that Freehold Royalties has a trailing yield of 9.3% on the current share price of CA$6.77. If you buy this business for its dividend, you should have an idea of whether Freehold Royalties's dividend is reliable and sustainable. We need to see whether the dividend is covered by earnings and if it's growing.
See our latest analysis for Freehold Royalties
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. Freehold Royalties lost money last year, so the fact that it's paying a dividend is certainly disconcerting. There might be a good reason for this, but we'd want to look into it further before getting comfortable. Given that the company reported a loss last year, we now need to see if it generated enough free cash flow to fund the dividend. If cash earnings don't cover the dividend, the company would have to pay dividends out of cash in the bank, or by borrowing money, neither of which is long-term sustainable. Over the past year it paid out 146% 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.
Click here to see the company's payout ratio, plus analyst estimates of its future dividends.
Have Earnings And Dividends Been Growing?
Businesses with shrinking earnings are tricky from a dividend perspective. If business enters a downturn and the dividend is cut, the company could see its value fall precipitously. Freehold Royalties reported a loss last year, and the general trend suggests its earnings have also been declining in recent years, making us wonder if the dividend is at risk.
Another key way to measure a company's dividend prospects is by measuring its historical rate of dividend growth. Freehold Royalties's dividend payments per share have declined at 7.9% per year on average over the past ten years, which is uninspiring. It's never nice to see earnings and dividends falling, but at least management has cut the dividend rather than potentially risk the company's health in an attempt to maintain it.
Remember, you can always get a snapshot of Freehold Royalties's financial health, by checking our visualisation of its financial health, here.
The Bottom Line
Is Freehold Royalties an attractive dividend stock, or better left on the shelf? We're a bit uncomfortable with it paying a dividend while being loss-making, especially given that the dividend was not well covered by free cash flow. It's not that we think Freehold Royalties is a bad company, but these characteristics don't generally lead to outstanding dividend performance.
Wondering what the future holds for Freehold Royalties? See what the five analysts we track are forecasting, with this visualisation of its historical and future estimated earnings and cash flow
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.
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.
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.
