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Is It Worth Considering Angang Steel Company Limited (HKG:347) For Its Upcoming Dividend?

Angang Steel Company Limited (HKG:347) is about to trade ex-dividend in the next 4 days. This means that investors who purchase shares on or after the 1st of June will not receive the dividend, which will be paid on the 30th of June.

Angang Steel's next dividend payment will be HK$0.057 per share, and in the last 12 months, the company paid a total of HK$0.057 per share. Calculating the last year's worth of payments shows that Angang Steel has a trailing yield of 3.3% on the current share price of HK$1.88. We love seeing companies pay a dividend, but it's also important to be sure that laying the golden eggs isn't going to kill our golden goose! So we need to check whether the dividend payments are covered, and if earnings are growing.

Check out our latest analysis for Angang Steel

If a company pays out more in dividends than it earned, then the dividend might become unsustainable - hardly an ideal situation. Fortunately Angang Steel's payout ratio is modest, at just 32% of profit. A useful secondary check can be to evaluate whether Angang Steel generated enough free cash flow to afford its dividend. Over the past year it paid out 153% 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.

Angang Steel 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 Angang Steel 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.

SEHK:347 Historical Dividend Yield May 27th 2020
SEHK:347 Historical Dividend Yield May 27th 2020

Have Earnings And Dividends Been Growing?

Companies with consistently growing earnings per share generally make the best dividend stocks, as they usually find it easier to grow dividends per share. Investors love dividends, so if earnings fall and the dividend is reduced, expect a stock to be sold off heavily at the same time. For this reason, we're glad to see Angang Steel's earnings per share have risen 12% per annum over the last 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.

The main way most investors will assess a company's dividend prospects is by checking the historical rate of dividend growth. In the last ten years, Angang Steel has lifted its dividend by approximately 2.1% a year on average. It's good to see both earnings and the dividend have improved - although the former has been rising much quicker than the latter, possibly due to the company reinvesting more of its profits in growth.

To Sum It Up

Is Angang Steel worth buying for its dividend? We like that Angang Steel 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. While it does have some good things going for it, we're a bit ambivalent and it would take more to convince us of Angang Steel's dividend merits.

With that in mind, a critical part of thorough stock research is being aware of any risks that stock currently faces. For example, we've found 3 warning signs for Angang Steel that we recommend you consider before investing in the business.

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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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. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned. Thank you for reading.