4 Days To Buy AMA Group Limited (ASX:AMA) Before The Ex-Dividend Date
AMA Group Limited (ASX:AMA) is about to trade ex-dividend in the next 4 days. You can purchase shares before the 12th of September in order to receive the dividend, which the company will pay on the 13th of November.
AMA Group's next dividend payment will be AU$0.022 per share, and in the last 12 months, the company paid a total of AU$0.028 per share. Based on the last year's worth of payments, AMA Group has a trailing yield of 2.0% on the current stock price of A$1.38. If you buy this business for its dividend, you should have an idea of whether AMA Group's dividend is reliable and sustainable. So we need to check whether the dividend payments are covered, and if earnings are growing.
View our latest analysis for AMA Group
If a company pays out more in dividends than it earned, then the dividend might become unsustainable - hardly an ideal situation. AMA Group is paying out an acceptable 69% of its profit, a common payout level among most companies. Yet cash flow is typically more important than profit for assessing dividend sustainability, so we should always check if the company generated enough cash to afford its dividend. AMA Group paid out more free cash flow than it generated - 155%, to be precise - last year, which we think is concerningly 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.
AMA Group 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 AMA 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?
Businesses with strong growth prospects usually make the best dividend payers, because it's easier to grow dividends when earnings per share are improving. 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 AMA Group's earnings per share have risen 18% 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. AMA Group has seen its dividend decline 1.5% per annum on average over the past 10 years, which is not great to see.
The Bottom Line
From a dividend perspective, should investors buy or avoid AMA Group? It's good to see that earnings per share are growing and that the company's payout ratio is within a normal range for most businesses. However we're somewhat concerned that it paid out 155% of its cashflow, which is uncomfortably high. While it does have some good things going for it, we're a bit ambivalent and it would take more to convince us of AMA Group's dividend merits.
Curious what other investors think of AMA Group? See what analysts are forecasting, with this visualisation of its historical and future estimated earnings and cash flow .
We wouldn't recommend just buying the first dividend stock you see, though. Here's a list of interesting dividend stocks with a greater than 2% yield and an upcoming dividend.
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.
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.
