Only 3 Days Left To Cash In On Evergy, Inc. (NYSE:EVRG) Dividend
Regular readers will know that we love our dividends at Simply Wall St, which is why it's exciting to see Evergy, Inc. (NYSE:EVRG) is about to trade ex-dividend in the next 3 days. This means that investors who purchase shares on or after the 26th of November will not receive the dividend, which will be paid on the 20th of December.
Evergy's next dividend payment will be US$0.51 per share, and in the last 12 months, the company paid a total of US$2.02 per share. Based on the last year's worth of payments, Evergy stock has a trailing yield of around 3.1% on the current share price of $64.73. If you buy this business for its dividend, you should have an idea of whether Evergy's dividend is reliable and sustainable. We need to see whether the dividend is covered by earnings and if it's growing.
Check out our latest analysis for Evergy
If a company pays out more in dividends than it earned, then the dividend might become unsustainable - hardly an ideal situation. It paid out 75% of its earnings as dividends last year, which is not unreasonable, but limits reinvestment in the business and leaves the dividend vulnerable to a business downturn. We'd be worried about the risk of a drop in earnings. Yet cash flows are even more important than profits for assessing a dividend, so we need to see if the company generated enough cash to pay its distribution. Over the past year it paid out 123% 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.
While Evergy's dividends were covered by the company's reported profits, cash is somewhat more important, so it's not great to see that the company didn't generate enough cash to pay its dividend. Cash is king, as they say, and were Evergy 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?
Companies that aren't growing their earnings can still be valuable, but it is even more important to assess the sustainability of the dividend if it looks like the company will struggle to grow. Investors love dividends, so if earnings fall and the dividend is reduced, expect a stock to be sold off heavily at the same time. With that in mind, we're not enthused to see that Evergy's earnings per share have remained effectively flat over the past five years. It's better than seeing them drop, certainly, but over the long term, all of the best dividend stocks are able to meaningfully grow their earnings per share. Earnings have been growing somewhat, but we're concerned dividend payments consumed most of the company's cash flow over the past year.
Another key way to measure a company's dividend prospects is by measuring its historical rate of dividend growth. In the past ten years, Evergy has increased its dividend at approximately 5.7% a year on average.
To Sum It Up
Is Evergy worth buying for its dividend? In addition to earnings being flat, Evergy is paying out a reasonable percentage of its earnings as profits. However, the dividend was not well covered by free cash flow. It's not an attractive combination from a dividend perspective, and we're inclined to pass on this one for the time being.
Wondering what the future holds for Evergy? See what the seven analysts we track are forecasting, with this visualisation of its historical and future estimated earnings and cash flow
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.
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.
