NOF Corporation (TSE:4403) Looks Interesting, And It's About To Pay A Dividend

NOF Corporation (TSE:4403) stock is about to trade ex-dividend in three days. The ex-dividend date is usually set to be two business days before the record date, which is the cut-off date on which you must be present on the company's books as a shareholder in order to receive the dividend. The ex-dividend date is of consequence because whenever a stock is bought or sold, the trade can take two business days or more to settle. Accordingly, NOF investors that purchase the stock on or after the 29th of September will not receive the dividend, which will be paid on the 2nd of December.

The company's next dividend payment will be JP¥24.00 per share. Last year, in total, the company distributed JP¥48.00 to shareholders. Last year's total dividend payments show that NOF has a trailing yield of 1.8% on the current share price of JP¥2633.00. Dividends are a major contributor to investment returns for long term holders, but only if the dividend continues to be paid. As a result, readers should always check whether NOF has been able to grow its dividends, or if the dividend might be cut.

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Dividends are typically paid out of company income, so if a company pays out more than it earned, its dividend is usually at a higher risk of being cut. NOF paid out a comfortable 31% of its profit last year. 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 last year, it paid out more than three-quarters (76%) of its free cash flow generated, which is fairly high and may be starting to limit reinvestment in the business.

It's encouraging to see that the dividend is covered by both profit and cash flow. This generally suggests the dividend is sustainable, as long as earnings don't drop precipitously.

View our latest analysis for NOF

Click here to see the company's payout ratio, plus analyst estimates of its future dividends.

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. If earnings fall far enough, the company could be forced to cut its dividend. For this reason, we're glad to see NOF's earnings per share have risen 12% per annum over the last five years. The company paid out most of its earnings as dividends over the last year, even though business is booming and earnings per share are growing rapidly. Higher earnings generally bode well for growing dividends, although with seemingly strong growth prospects we'd wonder why management are not reinvesting more in the business.

The main way most investors will assess a company's dividend prospects is by checking the historical rate of dividend growth. In the past 10 years, NOF has increased its dividend at approximately 17% a year on average. Both per-share earnings and dividends have both been growing rapidly in recent times, which is great to see.

Final Takeaway

Has NOF got what it takes to maintain its dividend payments? From a dividend perspective, we're encouraged to see that earnings per share have been growing, the company is paying out less than half of its earnings, and a bit over half its free cash flow. NOF looks solid on this analysis overall, and we'd definitely consider investigating it more closely.

Curious what other investors think of NOF? See what analysts are forecasting, with this visualisation of its historical and future estimated earnings and cash flow.

Generally, we wouldn't recommend just buying the first dividend stock you see. Here's a curated list of interesting stocks that are strong dividend payers.