Dividend Increase | Visa (V)

Getting a pay raise while sitting on the couch?  Sign me up!  Thanks Visa for the dividend increase!

There's an old Chinese proverb that says "the best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago, the next best time is now".  The reason for this is that it takes time for a tree to grow and prosper and for you to start reaping its benefits.  Dividend growth investing is much the same way.  It takes consistent saving and investing as well as time and patience to let the power of dividend growth take hold.

That's why one of my favorite things is when one of the companies I own decides to pay out more in dividends.  You mean I get a pay raise just for owning a small piece of a company?  Not going and doing R&D for new products or technology.  Not selling any products.  Not managing any employees or inventory.  Not making sales calls.  All I had to do was have the foresight to invest some of my savings in excellent companies.  

On October 23rd the Board of Directors at Visa (V) approved an increase in the quarterly dividend from $0.30 up to $0.32.  That's a solid 6.7% increase.  Visa is a Dividend Contender with 13 consecutive years of dividend growth.  Shares currently yield 0.69% based on the new annualized payout.

The new dividend will be payable December 1st to shareholders of record as of November 13th.  

Since I own 49.888 shares of Visa in my FI Portfolio, this raise increased my forward 12-month dividends by $3.98.  This is the 9th dividend increase I've received from Visa since initiating a position in August 2013.  Total organic dividend growth over that time is an excellent 288%.  

A full screen version of this chart can be found here.

What Visa lacks in length of dividend growth they've more than made up for with the pace of dividend growth.  

Dating back to 2008 when Visa initiated their first dividend, year over year dividend growth has ranged from 4.8% to 47.8% with an average of 23.1% and a median of 19.3%.

There's been 8 rolling 5-year periods over that time and Visa's annualized dividend growth has ranged from 19.5% to 30.7% with an average of 24.9% and a median of 24.9%.

Due to the ongoing issues related to COVID, Visa's increase was much stingier than I think most people expected, myself included.  That being said I if nearly a 7% increase is a disappointment I'll gladly take it and it wouldn't surprise if things have normalized within the next 6 months that Visa dishes out an extra dividend increase.  

The 1-, 3-, 5- and 10-year rolling dividend growth rates since 2008 can be found in the following chart.  

A full screen version of this chart can be found here.

For dividend yield theory I consider the fair value range to be the forward dividend yield +/- 10% compared to the 5 year moving average, the under/over value area to be to between 10%-20% deviation from the average and significant over/under value are greater than a 20% deviation from the average.

A full screen version of this chart can be found here.

Visa's 5-year average forward dividend yield is 0.68% which corresponds to a share price of $188 based on the new annualized payout.  

I consider the fair value range based on dividend yield theory to be the 5-year moving average yield +/- 10%.  That gives a fair value range of $173 - $209 and suggests that Visa is trading slightly below fair value at current prices.
  




Wrap Up

This raise increased my forward dividends by $3.98 with me doing nothing.  That's right, absolutely nothing to contribute to their operations.  Based on my FI Portfolio's current yield of 2.81% this raise is like I invested an extra $142 in capital.  Except that I didn't!  One of the companies I own just decided to send more cash my way. 

That's how you can eventually reach the crossover point where your dividends received exceed your expenses.  That's DIVIDEND GROWTH INVESTING AT WORK!  The beauty of the dividend growth investing strategy is that you build up your dividends through fresh capital investment as well dividend increases from the companies you own.

I've now received 36 raises from the companies in my FI Portfolio increasing my forward-12 month dividends by $257.82.

My FI Portfolio's forward-12 month dividends are $7,529.27  Including my FolioFirst portfolio's forward dividends of $104.46 brings my total taxable accounts dividends to $7,633.73.  My Roth IRA's forward 12-month dividends are $668.30.  My Rollover IRA's forward dividends are $3,092.72.  Across all accounts I can expect to receive $11,394.75 in dividends over the next year.

I've also started compiling dividend data on many of the companies that I own or would like to own.  Visa's can be found here which includes the dividend history (as far back as I can find without spending hours hunting it down), rolling dividend growth rates and dividend yield theory.  To see other companies that I've already gathered the data on you can check out the Dividend Companies page.  Check it out and let me know what you think.

Do you own shares of Visa?  What are your thoughts on this subpar dividend increase?

Please share your thoughts below.