Altius Minerals Corporation (TSE:ALS) stock is about to trade ex-dividend in 3 days. The ex-dividend date is one business day before a company's record date, which is the date on which the company determines which shareholders are entitled to receive a dividend. The ex-dividend date is important because any transaction on a stock needs to have been settled before the record date in order to be eligible for a dividend. This means that investors who purchase Altius Minerals' shares on or after the 28th of May will not receive the dividend, which will be paid on the 15th of June.

The company's next dividend payment will be CA$0.05 per share. Last year, in total, the company distributed CA$0.20 to shareholders. Calculating the last year's worth of payments shows that Altius Minerals has a trailing yield of 1.2% on the current share price of CA$16.77. We love seeing companies pay a dividend, but it's also important to be sure that laying the golden eggs isn't going to kill our golden goose! So we need to investigate whether Altius Minerals can afford its dividend, and if the dividend could grow.

Check out our latest analysis for Altius Minerals

If a company pays out more in dividends than it earned, then the dividend might become unsustainable – hardly an ideal situation. Altius Minerals paid a dividend last year despite being unprofitable. This might be a one-off event, but it's not a sustainable state of affairs in the long run. Considering the lack of profitability, we also need to check if the company generated enough cash flow to cover the dividend payment. If cash earnings don't cover the dividend, the company would have to pay dividends out of cash in the bank, or by borrowing money, neither of which is long-term sustainable. It distributed 37% of its free cash flow as dividends, a comfortable payout level for most companies.

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

Have Earnings And Dividends Been Growing?

Businesses with strong growth prospects usually make the best dividend payers, because it's easier to grow dividends when earnings per share are improving. If business enters a downturn and the dividend is cut, the company could see its value fall precipitously. Altius Minerals was unprofitable last year, but at least the general trend suggests its earnings have been improving over the past five years. Even so, an unprofitable company whose business does not quickly recover is usually not a good candidate for dividend investors.

Another key way to measure a company's dividend prospects is by measuring its historical rate of dividend growth. Altius Minerals has delivered 16% dividend growth per year on average over the past six years. Both per-share earnings and dividends have both been growing rapidly in recent times, which is great to see.

We update our analysis on Altius Minerals every 24 hours, so you can always get the latest insights on its financial health, here.

Final Takeaway

From a dividend perspective, should investors buy or avoid Altius Minerals? We're a bit uncomfortable with it paying a dividend while being loss-making. However, we note that the dividend was covered by cash flow. Overall, it's not a bad combination, but we feel that there are likely more attractive dividend prospects out there.

Curious what other investors think of Altius Minerals? See what analysts 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.

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. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned.

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