Sure most CEOs give lip-service to their commitment to shareholders, but what happens when times are hard. When the economy turns down and the future looks bleak, will the company hoard cash and stop its dividend or put action behind its words?
Q: What do all these have in common?
- Women gaining the right to vote in 1920
- The U.S. Depression in the 1930s
- World War I
- Charles Lindbergh’s transatlantic flight in 1927
- World War II
- Dropping the atomic bomb in 1945
- The Nazi Holocaust
- The Korean War in the 1950s
- The Russian Sputnik satellites in the 1950s
- The Vietnam War in the 1960s/1970s
- President Kennedy's assassination in 1963
- Civil Rights protests in the 1960s
- Landing a man on the moon in 1969
- The Watergate scandal in the 1970s
- The fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989
- The breakup of the Soviet Union in the 1990s
- The Persian Gulf War in 1991
- The impeachment of President Bill Clinton in 1998
A: They all occurred while several companies continued to pay their dividend, uninterrupted, year after year.
This week week, I screened my dividend growth stocks database for companies that have paid uninterrupted dividends for more than 110 years with a yield above 2.5%. The results are presented below:
Church & Dwight Co. Inc. (CHD)
Yield: 3.2% | Dividend Paid Since: 1901
Church & Dwight Co. Inc. sells baking soda and sodium bicarbonate-based products under the Arm & Hammer name to consumer and industrial markets. It also sells other household products, personal care, and specialty products under other brand names.
Teco Energy, Inc. (TE)
Yield: 5.0% | Dividend Paid Since: 1900
TECO Energy Inc. owns Tampa Electric Co., which serves the Tampa Bay region in west central Florida and has significant diversified operations related to its core business.
PPG Industries, Inc. (PPG)
Yield: 3.0% | Dividend Paid Since: 1899
PPG is a leading manufacturer of coatings and resins, flat and fiber glass, and industrial and specialty chemicals.
Avista Corporation (AVA)
Yield: 4.5% | Dividend Paid Since: 1899
Avista Corp. generates, transmits and distributes energy as well as engages in energy-related businesses. The company operates in two business segments.
General Mills, Inc. (GIS)
Yield: 3.1% | Dividend Paid Since: 1898
General Mills, Inc. is a major producer of packaged consumer food products, including Big G cereals and Betty Crocker desserts/baking mixes.
Colgate-Palmolive (CL)
Yield: 2.5% | Dividend Paid Since: 1895
Colgate-Palmolive Company (Colgate) is a major consumer products company that markets oral, personal and household care, and pet nutrition products in more than 200 countries and territories.
Coca-Cola Company (KO)
Yield: 2.9% | Dividend Paid Since: 1893
The Coca-Cola Company is the world's largest soft drink company, and it also has a sizable fruit juice business.
Procter & Gamble (PG)
Yield: 3.3% | Dividend Paid Since: 1891
The Procter & Gamble Company is a leading consumer products company that markets household and personal care products in more than 180 countries.
Johnson Controls, Inc. (JCI)
Yield: 2.2% | Dividend Paid Since: 1887
Johnson Controls Inc. supplies building controls and energy management systems, automotive seating, and batteries.
Consolidated Edison, Inc. (ED)
Yield: 4.3% | Dividend Paid Since: 1885
Consolidated Edison, Inc. is an electric and gas utility holding company that serves parts of New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania.
UGI Corporation (UGI)
Yield: 3.9% | Dividend Paid Since: 1885
UGI Corp. operates propane distribution, gas and electric utility, energy marketing and related businesses through subsidiaries.
Exxon Mobil Corporation (XOM)
Yield: 2.5% | Dividend Paid Since: 1882
Exxon Mobil Corp. (XOM), formed through the merger of Exxon and Mobil in late 1999, is the world's largest publicly owned integrated oil company.
NSTAR (NST)
Yield: 4.0% | Dividend Paid Since: 1879
NSTAR is a Boston-based holding company that serves some 1.4 million electric and natural gas customers in Massachusetts.
Stanley Black & Decker Inc. (SWK)
Yield: 3.1% | Dividend Paid Since: 1877
Stanley Black & Decker Inc. is a diversified global provider of hand tools, power tools and related accessories and systems resulted from the March 2010 merger of StanleyWorks and Black & Decker.
WGL Holdings Inc. (WGL)
Yield: 3.9% | Dividend Paid Since: 1852
WGL Holdings Inc. provides natural gas service in the Washington, DC, metropolitan area and surrounding regions, including Maryland and Virginia.
As with past screens, the data presented above is in its raw form. Some of the the companies would be disqualified for poor dividend fundamentals. However some of the others may be worth additional due diligence.
My database, D4L-Data, is an Open Office spreadsheet containing more than 20 columns of information on the 210+ companies that I track. The data is sortable and has built-in buttons and macros to make it easy to use. Companies included in the list are those that have had a history of dividend growth. The D4L-Data spreadsheet is a part of D4L-Premium Services and is updated each Saturday for subscribers.
Full Disclosure: Long CL, KO, PG, ED. See a list of all my dividend growth holdings here.
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(Photo Credit)
Tags: [CHD] [TE] [PPG] [AVA] [GIS] [CL] [KO] [PG] [JCI] [ED] [UGI] [XOM] [NST] [SWK] [WGL]