BankUnited (NYSE:BKU) Is Due To Pay A Dividend Of US$0.23

The board of BankUnited, Inc. (NYSE:BKU) has announced that it will pay a dividend on the 31st of January, with investors receiving US$0.23 per share. This means that the annual payment will be 2.2% of the current stock price, which is in line with the average for the industry.

Check out our latest analysis for BankUnited

BankUnited's Dividend Is Well Covered By Earnings

Unless the payments are sustainable, the dividend yield doesn't mean too much. However, BankUnited's earnings easily cover the dividend. As a result, a large proportion of what it earned was being reinvested back into the business.

Looking forward, earnings per share is forecast to fall by 6.4% over the next year. If the dividend continues along recent trends, we estimate the payout ratio could be 24%, which we consider to be quite comfortable, with most of the company's earnings left over to grow the business in the future.

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BankUnited Has A Solid Track Record

Even over a long history of paying dividends, the company's distributions have been remarkably stable. The dividend has gone from US$0.56 in 2011 to the most recent annual payment of US$0.92. This implies that the company grew its distributions at a yearly rate of about 5.1% over that duration. The dividend has been growing very nicely for a number of years, and has given its shareholders some nice income in their portfolios.

The Dividend Looks Likely To Grow

Investors who have held shares in the company for the past few years will be happy with the dividend income they have received. We are encouraged to see that BankUnited has grown earnings per share at 15% per year over the past five years. With a decent amount of growth and a low payout ratio, we think this bodes well for BankUnited's prospects of growing its dividend payments in the future.

BankUnited Looks Like A Great Dividend Stock

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. The company is generating plenty of cash, and the earnings also quite easily cover the distributions. We should point out that the earnings are expected to fall over the next 12 months, which won't be a problem if this doesn't become a trend, but could cause some turbulence in the next year. Taking this all into consideration, this looks like it could be a good dividend opportunity.

Companies possessing a stable dividend policy will likely enjoy greater investor interest than those suffering from a more inconsistent approach. At the same time, there are other factors our readers should be conscious of before pouring capital into a stock. For instance, we've picked out 1 warning sign for BankUnited that investors should take into consideration. If you are a dividend investor, you might also want to look at our curated list of high performing dividend stock.

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This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. We provide commentary based on historical data and analyst forecasts only using an unbiased methodology and our articles are not intended to be financial advice. 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.