Oracle (NYSE:ORCL) Has Announced A Dividend Of $0.40

Oracle Corporation (NYSE:ORCL) has announced that it will pay a dividend of $0.40 per share on the 25th of July. The dividend yield will be 1.2% based on this payment which is still above the industry average.

View our latest analysis for Oracle

Oracle's Payment Has Solid Earnings Coverage

If the payments aren't sustainable, a high yield for a few years won't matter that much. Prior to this announcement, Oracle's dividend was comfortably covered by both cash flow and earnings. This indicates that quite a large proportion of earnings is being invested back into the business.

The next year is set to see EPS grow by 81.7%. If the dividend continues along recent trends, we estimate the payout ratio will be 26%, which is in the range that makes us comfortable with the sustainability of the dividend.

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Oracle Has A Solid Track Record

Even over a long history of paying dividends, the company's distributions have been remarkably stable. The annual payment during the last 10 years was $0.48 in 2014, and the most recent fiscal year payment was $1.60. This implies that the company grew its distributions at a yearly rate of about 13% over that duration. So, dividends have been growing pretty quickly, and even more impressively, they haven't experienced any notable falls during this period.

The Dividend's Growth Prospects Are Limited

Investors who have held shares in the company for the past few years will be happy with the dividend income they have received. Earnings have grown at around 4.5% a year for the past five years, which isn't massive but still better than seeing them shrink. Growth of 4.5% may indicate that the company has limited investment opportunity so it is returning its earnings to shareholders instead. This isn't necessarily bad, but we wouldn't expect rapid dividend growth in the future.

We Really Like Oracle's Dividend

In summary, it is good to see that the dividend is staying consistent, and we don't think there is any reason to suspect this might change over the medium term. 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. Meanwhile, despite the importance of dividend payments, they are not the only factors our readers should know when assessing a company. Taking the debate a bit further, we've identified 1 warning sign for Oracle that investors need to be conscious of moving forward. 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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