Are You An Income Investor? Don’t Miss Out On Frauenthal Holding AG (VIE:FKA)

Could Frauenthal Holding AG (VIE:FKA) be an attractive dividend share to own for the long haul? Investors are often drawn to strong companies with the idea of reinvesting the dividends. If you are hoping to live on the income from dividends, it’s important to be a lot more stringent with your investments than the average punter.

With a 1.7% yield and a nine-year payment history, investors probably think Frauenthal Holding looks like a reliable dividend stock. A low yield is generally a turn-off, but if the prospects for earnings growth were strong, investors might be pleasantly surprised by the long-term results. Some simple analysis can offer a lot of insights when buying a company for its dividend, and we’ll go through this below.

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Payout ratios

Companies (usually) pay dividends out of their earnings. If a company is paying more than it earns, the dividend might have to be cut. So we need to form a view on if a company’s dividend is sustainable, relative to its net profit after tax. In the last year, Frauenthal Holding paid out 11% of its profit as dividends. Given the low payout ratio, it is hard to envision the dividend coming under threat, barring a catastrophe.

Another important check we do is to see if the free cash flow generated is sufficient to pay the dividend. Frauenthal Holding paid out 9.4% of its free cash flow as dividends last year, which is conservative and suggests the dividend is sustainable. 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.

Is Frauenthal Holding’s Balance Sheet Risky?

As Frauenthal Holding has a meaningful amount of debt, we need to check its balance sheet to see if the company might have debt risks. A rough way to check this is with these two simple ratios: a) net debt divided by EBITDA (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation), and b) net interest cover. Net debt to EBITDA is a measure of a company’s total debt. Net interest cover measures the ability to meet interest payments. Essentially we check that a) the company does not have too much debt, and b) that it can afford to pay the interest. Frauenthal Holding has net debt of 1.20 times its EBITDA, which we think is not too troublesome.

We calculated its interest cover by measuring its earnings before interest and tax (EBIT), and dividing this by the company’s net interest expense. With EBIT of 3.27 times its interest expense, Frauenthal Holding’s interest cover is starting to look a bit thin.

We update our data on Frauenthal Holding every 24 hours, so you can always get our latest analysis of its financial health, here.

Dividend Volatility

One of the major risks of relying on dividend income, is the potential for a company to struggle financially and cut its dividend. Not only is your income cut, but the value of your investment declines as well – nasty. Looking at the last decade of data, we can see that Frauenthal Holding paid its first dividend at least nine years ago. It’s good to see that Frauenthal Holding has been paying a dividend for a number of years. However, the dividend has been cut at least once in the past, and we’re concerned that what has been cut once, could be cut again. During the past nine-year period, the first annual payment was €0.10 in 2011, compared to €0.30 last year. This works out to be a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of approximately 13% a year over that time. Frauenthal Holding’s dividend payments have fluctuated, so it hasn’t grown 13% every year, but the CAGR is a useful rule of thumb for approximating the historical growth.

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