Enterprise Financial Services Corp (NASDAQ:EFSC) Looks Interesting, And It's About To Pay A Dividend

Some investors rely on dividends for growing their wealth, and if you're one of those dividend sleuths, you might be intrigued to know that Enterprise Financial Services Corp (NASDAQ:EFSC) is about to go ex-dividend in just four days. You will need to purchase shares before the 14th of September to receive the dividend, which will be paid on the 30th of September.

Enterprise Financial Services's next dividend payment will be US$0.18 per share, on the back of last year when the company paid a total of US$0.72 to shareholders. Based on the last year's worth of payments, Enterprise Financial Services has a trailing yield of 2.4% on the current stock price of $30.17. Dividends are an important source of income to many shareholders, but the health of the business is crucial to maintaining those dividends. We need to see whether the dividend is covered by earnings and if it's growing.

Check out our latest analysis for Enterprise Financial Services

Dividends are typically paid out of company income, so if a company pays out more than it earned, its dividend is usually at a higher risk of being cut. Enterprise Financial Services is paying out just 21% of its profit after tax, which is comfortably low and leaves plenty of breathing room in the case of adverse events.

Generally speaking, the lower a company's payout ratios, the more resilient its dividend usually is.

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 earnings fall far enough, the company could be forced to cut its dividend. For this reason, we're glad to see Enterprise Financial Services's earnings per share have risen 19% per annum over the last five years.

Many investors will assess a company's dividend performance by evaluating how much the dividend payments have changed over time. Enterprise Financial Services has delivered an average of 13% per year annual increase in its dividend, based on the past 10 years of dividend payments. Both per-share earnings and dividends have both been growing rapidly in recent times, which is great to see.

The Bottom Line

Should investors buy Enterprise Financial Services for the upcoming dividend? Typically, companies that are growing rapidly and paying out a low fraction of earnings are keeping the profits for reinvestment in the business. This is one of the most attractive investment combinations under this analysis, as it can create substantial value for investors over the long run. Overall, Enterprise Financial Services looks like a promising dividend stock in this analysis, and we think it would be worth investigating further.

Wondering what the future holds for Enterprise Financial Services? See what the five analysts we track 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.

Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team@simplywallst.com.