Dividend Increase | Air Products & Chemicals (APD) $APD #Dividend

Dividend | Dividend Growth | Financial Independence | Freedom | Passive Income
Getting a pay raise while sitting on the couch?  Sign me up!  Thanks APD for another 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 February 3rd the Board of Directors at Air Products & Chemicals (APD) approved an increase in the quarterly dividend payment.  The dividend was increased from $1.50 to $1.62 which is a solid 8.0% increase.  Air Products & Chemicals is a Dividend Champion with 40 consecutive years of dividend growth.  Shares currently yield 2.46% based on the new annualized payout.

The new dividend will be payable May 9th to shareholders of record as of April 1st.

Since I own 21.316 shares of Air Products & Chemicals in my FI Portfolio, this raise increased my forward 12-month dividends by $10.23.  This is the 9th raise that I've received from APD since initiating a position in 2013.  Total organic dividend growth over that time is an impressive 128.2%.


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

Air Products & Chemical is one of those un-sexy, but vital businesses that I expect will continue to be able to grow and give out dividend raises for a long time.  APD's dividend growth streak began in 1982.

During APD's dividend growth streak, year over year dividend growth has ranged from 5.1% to 22.2% with an average of 11.0% and a median of 9.4%.

There's been 37 rolling 5-year periods over that time with annualized dividend growth ranging from 6.6% to 19.6% with an average of 10.8% and a median of 10.3%.

Over that same period there's been 32 rolling 5-year periods with annualized dividend growth ranging from 7.1% to 15.2% with an average of 10.3% and a median of 9.9%.

The 1-, 3-, 5-, and 10-year rolling dividend growth rates for Air Products & Chemicals since 1981 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.

Air Products & Chemcials' 5-year average forward dividend yield is 2.34% which corresponds to a share price of $277 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 $252 - $307 and suggests that shares are trading on the lower end of the fair value range.

Another quick and dirty valuation method is the Gordon Growth or Dividend Discount model.  This valuation method is based solely off the expected future dividends as well as your required return.  Based on a 10% discount rate and assuming Air Products & Chemicals can maintain 7.25% annual dividend growth shares are worth around $253 per share.


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

Increasing the estimated growth rate to 8.0% increases the fair value to $350.  Likewise, lowering the dividend growth rate to 6.5% reduces the fair value to just $197.
  




Wrap Up

This raise increased my forward dividends by $10.23 with zero effort on my part.  That's right, absolutely nothing to contribute to their operations.  Based on my FI Portfolio's current yield of 2.36% this raise is like I invested an extra $434 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.

This is the 5th dividend increase I've received from the companies in my FI Portfolio increasing by forward 12-month dividends by $53.63 combined.

My FI Portfolio's forward-12 month dividends are $9,679.93  Including my FolioFirst portfolio's forward dividends of $178.87 brings my total taxable accounts dividends to $9,858.80.  My Roth IRA's forward 12-month dividends are $932.04.  My Rollover IRA's forward dividends are $4,047.59.  Across all accounts I can expect to receive $14,838.43 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.  Air Products & Chemicals' 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 Air Products & Chemicals?

Please share your thoughts below.

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