Robert Sutherland Smith is again proving that he is still alive with another guest post. Robert started his City career the year before I was born and is, I think, 157 years old. Fear not. He is very much alive and kicking. He and I have worked together for almost eight years at t1ps.com . He is my friend and he is a very funny and intelligent chap. He is now branching out to celebrate his 158th by doing some freelance writing over at TradingResearchPoint on FTSE 350 Income stocks. Robert is a speaker at the UKInvestor Show on April 13th. He is a great one for focussing on yield. RSS today looks at Admiral.
There is something of the Sound of Music about the Admiral Group (ADM) dividend yield; pleasing but too good to be true? A version of the world not as we realistically understand it! Earnings are to Admiral what heavy curtains were to the singing children’s governess; something she used to the most useful extent by turning curtain drapes into children’s clothes. In Admiral’s case they have turned all – or almost all – of its 2012 earnings into dividends; a policy wholly untypical of most publicly quoted companies. Both choices are idiosyncratic but also, infuriatingly, examples ‘out of the box’ practical utilitarian logic. Just as the chorus of nuns sing “How do you solve a problem like Maria? How do you catch a cloud and pin it down”, so investors might murmur, something similar about the dividend policy of the Admiral Group.
It is decidedly unusual for a company to distribute nearly all its earnings as dividends. Particularly so when its balance sheet reveals that 97% of the shareholder equity of £443 million is made up of retention’s
on TradingResearchPoint | Comments