Investing is ultimately about managing tradeoffs. Bigger gains require taking on greater risk, for example. Or, generating real income right now usually means less long-term growth. Indeed, choosing to focus on one particular sector can mean you end up underexposed to another one.
Every now and then though, a stock offers investors something without forcing you to completely sacrifice something else. Finding these stocks tends to be a little harder.
To this end, here's a look at three solid dividend-paying names that are growing their top and bottom lines more than the average dividend stock usually does. None of them are the market's highest-yielding or the market's fastest-growing companies, to be clear. But, none of them make you feel like you've had to compromise by foregoing growth for income or vice versa.
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1. Sanofi
Dividend yield: 3.8%
French drugmaker Sanofi (SNY +0.34%) may not be a top-of-mind name that investors typically choose when looking to add some healthcare exposure to their portfolio. Don't let its lack of notoriety fool you though. Sanofi is as much of a pharmaceutical contender as U.S.-based names like Pfizer or Merck are. It's the name behind several blockbuster drugs like eczema and asthma treatment Dupixent, diabetes drug Lantus, and blood thinner Lovenox, just to name a few.
OK, none of those drugs are heavy hitters like the aforementioned Merck's cancer-fighting Keytruda or Pfizer's Ibrance. Don't mistake the ho-hum nature of its portfolio as a sign that it's a low-growth portfolio. This year's top line is on pace to come in more than 7% higher than 2020's, while next year's sales are projected to improve more than 6% on this year's numbers. That's better than Pfizer is expected to do and comparable to the average revenue growth Merck is projected to see over the course of the two-year span. Sanofi's dividend yield of 3.8%, however, is markedly better than Merck and Pfizer's current yields of just over 3.1%.
From a risk-vs-reward perspective, Sanofi is one of the pharmaceutical industry's very best bets.
2. VICI Properties
Dividend yield: 5%
Whereas Sanofi is off of most investors' radars, VICI Properties (VICI +0.77%) is downright obscure. Again though, don't let its obscurity fool you. This is a powerful growth machine with plenty of current income to share with shareholders right now.
VICI is a real estate investment trust, or REIT. That just means it owns rental properties, and it passes along a big piece of its rental income to investors each and every quarter. Indeed, it's required to divvy up the vast majority of rent payments with shareholders in order to maintain its tax-advantaged status. VICI Properties isn't your typical real estate investment trust though, even by REIT standards. It's solely focused on the casino and resort business.
It's an industry that's easy to be afraid of. Sure, when the economy is humming, consumers are vacationing and gambling. When the world's being battered by economic turbulence though -- like now -- this sort of entertainment falls out of favor.
As veteran investors can attest though, predicting economic headwinds and recessions can be bad for your portfolio. You never really know when (or even if) they're going to take shape, and it's just as difficult to know when they've ended and we're on the road to recovery. The smart-money move is simply sticking with income-oriented real estate holdings for the long haul, holding them through any rough patches. In the meantime, you're stepping into a stock paying a market-beating dividend of 5% of a company that's expected to see more than 20% sales growth this year and more than 40% sales growth next year. And, as fellow Fool Kody Kester just pointed out, VICI Properties can afford the dividend payments it's making.
3. Vodafone
Dividend yield: 6.9%
Saving the best for last, let's head back to Europe and point out Vodafone (VOD +0.56%) as a high-dividend, high-growth stock to consider.
It's also arguably the most familiar name on this list. Vodafone is of course a major UK-based telecom service provider, although the bulk of its business is actually done in Africa and other parts of Europe. Mobile, broadband, and enterprise-level solutions are all part of its repertoire.
The past several years haven't been particularly impressive for the company, with sales and earnings effectively stagnating. The few investors that still keep tabs on Vodafone, however, know that it's been overhauling itself for some time now, and still is. For instance, its infrastructure and services businesses are being split into two entities so each can better focus on each of its customers' unique needs.
It's also rolling out 5G edge computing solutions this year, plugging into opportunities that have only just materialized now that this next-gen technology is ready for use in the real-world environment.
These (and other) tweaks appear to be working. The company just reported revenue growth of 2.8% for the first half of the current fiscal year, driving a 6.5% year-over-year increase in adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA). And that may just be the beginning. Following the release of the report, CEO Nick Read commented that the company is building a "sustained growth engine." The language suggests the first-half report is expected to be the new norm. To this end, Vodafone also raised its free cash flow and profit guidance for the current fiscal year, in light of its results and trends through the first half of the year.
There are faster-growing companies, but none of them are growing this fast and also paying a dividend worth nearly 7% of the stock's present price.
