Dun & Bradstreet's Dividend X-Ray

Not all dividends are created equal. Here, we'll do a top-to-bottom analysis of a given company to understand the quality of its dividend and how that's changed over the past five years.

The company we're looking at today is Dun & Bradstreet (NYSE: DNB), which yields 1.8%.

Dividend
To evaluate the quality of a dividend, the first thing to consider is whether the company has paid a dividend consistently over the past five years, and, if so, how much has it grown.

DNB Dividend data by YCharts

Dun & Bradstreet has steadily raised its dividend every year for the past five years to where it now sits at $0.38 per quarter.

Immediate safety
To understand how safe a dividend is, we use three crucial tools, the first of which is:

• The interest coverage ratio, or the number of times interest is earned, which is calculated by earnings before interest and taxes, divided by interest expense. The interest coverage ratio measures a company's ability to pay the interest on its debt. A ratio less than 1.5 is questionable; a number less than one means the company is not bringing in enough money to cover its interest expenses.

DNB Times Interest Earned TTM data by YCharts

At 11.5, Dun & Bradstreet covers every $1 in interest expense with more than $11 in operating earnings.

Sustainability
The other tools we use to evaluate the safety of a dividend are:

• The EPS payout ratio, or dividends per share divided by earnings per share. The EPS payout ratio measures the percentage of earnings that go toward paying the dividend. A ratio greater than 80% is worrisome.
• The FCF payout ratio, or dividends per share divided by free cash flow per share. Earnings alone don't always paint a complete picture of a business's health. The FCF payout ratio measures the percent of free cash flow devoted toward paying the dividend. Again, a ratio greater than 80% could be a red flag.

Source: S&P Capital IQ.

Dun & Bradstreet's payout ratios have slowly been rising the past five years but still sit at a low level just below 30%.

Another tool for better investing
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