Should Lanzhou Zhuangyuan Pasture Co., Ltd. (HKG:1533) Be Part Of Your Dividend Portfolio?
Could Lanzhou Zhuangyuan Pasture Co., Ltd. (HKG:1533) be an attractive dividend share to own for the long haul? Investors are often drawn to strong companies with the idea of reinvesting the dividends. On the other hand, investors have been known to buy a stock because of its yield, and then lose money if the company's dividend doesn't live up to expectations.
With a 1.3% yield and a four-year payment history, investors probably think Lanzhou Zhuangyuan Pasture looks like a reliable dividend stock. A low yield is generally a turn-off, but if the prospects for earnings growth were strong, investors might be pleasantly surprised by the long-term results. There are a few simple ways to reduce the risks of buying Lanzhou Zhuangyuan Pasture for its dividend, and we'll go through these below.
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Payout ratios
Companies (usually) pay dividends out of their earnings. If a company is paying more than it earns, the dividend might have to be cut. As a result, we should always investigate whether a company can afford its dividend, measured as a percentage of a company's net income after tax. Lanzhou Zhuangyuan Pasture paid out 20% of its profit as dividends, over the trailing twelve month period. We'd say its dividends are thoroughly covered by earnings.
Another important check we do is to see if the free cash flow generated is sufficient to pay the dividend. Unfortunately, while Lanzhou Zhuangyuan Pasture pays a dividend, it also reported negative free cash flow last year. While there may be a good reason for this, it's not ideal from a dividend perspective.
Is Lanzhou Zhuangyuan Pasture's Balance Sheet Risky?
As Lanzhou Zhuangyuan Pasture has a meaningful amount of debt, we need to check its balance sheet to see if the company might have debt risks. A rough way to check this is with these two simple ratios: a) net debt divided by EBITDA (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation), and b) net interest cover. Net debt to EBITDA measures total debt load relative to company earnings (lower = less debt), while net interest cover measures the ability to pay interest on the debt (higher = greater ability to pay interest costs). With net debt of 2.36 times its EBITDA, Lanzhou Zhuangyuan Pasture's debt burden is within a normal range for most listed companies.
Net interest cover can be calculated by dividing earnings before interest and tax (EBIT) by the company's net interest expense. With EBIT of 3.27 times its interest expense, Lanzhou Zhuangyuan Pasture's interest cover is starting to look a bit thin.
We update our data on Lanzhou Zhuangyuan Pasture every 24 hours, so you can always get our latest analysis of its financial health, here.
Dividend Volatility
One of the major risks of relying on dividend income, is the potential for a company to struggle financially and cut its dividend. Not only is your income cut, but the value of your investment declines as well - nasty. Looking at the data, we can see that Lanzhou Zhuangyuan Pasture has been paying a dividend for the past four years. The dividend has not fluctuated much, but with a relatively short payment history, we can't be sure this is sustainable across a full market cycle. During the past four-year period, the first annual payment was CN¥0.071 in 2016, compared to CN¥0.068 last year. The dividend has shrunk at around 1.1% a year during that period.
When a company's per-share dividend falls we question if this reflects poorly on either external business conditions, or the company's capital allocation decisions. Either way, we find it hard to get excited about a company with a declining dividend.
Dividend Growth Potential
Dividend payments have been consistent over the past few years, but we should always check if earnings per share (EPS) are growing, as this will help maintain the purchasing power of the dividend. Lanzhou Zhuangyuan Pasture's earnings per share have been essentially flat over the past five years. Flat earnings per share are acceptable for a time, but over the long term, the purchasing power of the company's dividends could be eroded by inflation. Growth has been hard to come by. However, at least the payout ratio is conservative, and there is plenty of potential to increase this over time.
We'd also point out that Lanzhou Zhuangyuan Pasture issued a meaningful number of new shares in the past year. Regularly issuing new shares can be detrimental - it's hard to grow dividends per share when new shares are regularly being created.
Conclusion
When we look at a dividend stock, we need to form a judgement on whether the dividend will grow, if the company is able to maintain it in a wide range of economic circumstances, and if the dividend payout is sustainable. Lanzhou Zhuangyuan Pasture has a low payout ratio, which we like, although it paid out virtually all of its generated cash. Unfortunately, there hasn't been any earnings growth, and the company's dividend history is shorter than the 10 years we ideally like to see before making a strong judgement. While we're not hugely bearish on it, overall we think there are potentially better dividend stocks than Lanzhou Zhuangyuan Pasture out there.
Are management backing themselves to deliver performance? Check their shareholdings in Lanzhou Zhuangyuan Pasture in our latest insider ownership analysis.
Looking for more high-yielding dividend ideas? Try our curated list of dividend stocks with a yield above 3%.
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.
