23 Dividend Growth Companies Raising Dividends Last Week

I review the list of dividend increases every week, as part of my monitoring process. Dividends have signaling power about management's outlook for the business. As such dividend increase announcements could provide useful insights, if you know how to read them. Which goes hand in hand with monitoring.

This exericise helps me review existing holdings and also potentially identify companies for further research.

This exercise also shows how I can quickly evaluate a population of dividend growth stocks, and narrow it down to a more manageable list for further research.

Over the past week, there were 62 companies that raised dividends in the US. Twenty three of these companies that raised dividends also have a 10 year track record of annual dividend increases under their belt. The companies include:

As I mentioned above, this list is just a starting list for research and monitoring. It's not a recommendation. In order to narrow down the list, I would look at each company fundamentally, and then do a review of its valuation before deciding where to go next. I also do try to invest in companies I understand, which also prevents me from investing in companies I do not understand. You may like this old post about my entry criteria.  You may also like my post about valuation here. 

Note that I didn't include Meta's (META) first dividend increase in this review. Note that I did find it a little low - a measly 5% to 52.50 cents/share on the quarterly dividend. I would have expected that a large company in the initial phase would have stronger dividend growth. Or perhaps Meta is stating that whatever it is they are building today may need a ton of cash. Hopefully, those large CAPEX investments are allocated at a high ROI to generate further FCF/share growth. 

I also wanted to note that there were a few non-US companies that raised dividends last week as well. These are well-known and perhaps widely held as well.

Those include:

British American Tobacco (BTI), which announced a 2% hike in the annual dividend to GBP 2.4024/share. This is the 28th consecutive annual dividend increase for this international dividend aristocrat.

Nestle (NSRGY), which announced a 1.67% raise in the annual dividend to 3.05 CHF/share. This is the 29th consecutive annual dividend increase for this international dividend aristocrat. 

I was unsure whether to note it or not, but it seems like Unilever (UL) is starting to increase dividends again. The company just raised quarterly dividends to €0.4528/share, which is 6.09% raise over the dividend paid during the same time last year. It's also a 3% increase over the prior dividend. That's after keeping it unchanged for three and a half years, and losing its dividend aristocrat status in 2022.