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Are You Looking for a High-Growth Dividend Stock?

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Whether it's through stocks, bonds, ETFs, or other types of securities, all investors love seeing their portfolios score big returns. But when you're an income investor, your primary focus is generating consistent cash flow from each of your liquid investments.

Cash flow can come from bond interest, interest from other types of investments, and of course, dividends. A dividend is the distribution of a company's earnings paid out to shareholders; it's often viewed by its dividend yield, a metric that measures a dividend as a percent of the current stock price. Many academic studies show that dividends account for significant portions of long-term returns, with dividend contributions exceeding one-third of total returns in many cases.

Banco Santander-Chile in Focus

Banco Santander-Chile (BSAC - Free Report) is headquartered in Santiago Chile, and is in the Finance sector. The stock has seen a price change of 30.28% since the start of the year. The financial holding company is currently shelling out a dividend of $0.99 per share, with a dividend yield of 4.04%. This compares to the Banks - Foreign industry's yield of 3.7% and the S&P 500's yield of 1.56%.

In terms of dividend growth, the company's current annualized dividend of $0.99 is up 74% from last year. Over the last 5 years, Banco Santander-Chile has increased its dividend 3 times on a year-over-year basis for an average annual increase of 9.01%. Looking ahead, future dividend growth will be dependent on earnings growth and payout ratio, which is the proportion of a company's annual earnings per share that it pays out as a dividend. Right now, Banco Santander-Chile's payout ratio is 25%, which means it paid out 25% of its trailing 12-month EPS as dividend.

Earnings growth looks solid for BSAC for this fiscal year. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for 2025 is $2.22 per share, representing a year-over-year earnings growth rate of 18.09%.

Bottom Line

From greatly improving stock investing profits and reducing overall portfolio risk to providing tax advantages, investors like dividends for a variety of different reasons. However, not all companies offer a quarterly payout.

High-growth firms or tech start-ups, for example, rarely provide their shareholders a dividend, while larger, more established companies that have more secure profits are often seen as the best dividend options. Income investors must be conscious of the fact that high-yielding stocks tend to struggle during periods of rising interest rates. That said, they can take comfort from the fact that BSAC is not only an attractive dividend play, but also represents a compelling investment opportunity with a Zacks Rank of #1 (Strong Buy).


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