A dividend champion is a company which has a 25 year record of annual dividend increases. There are only 145 such companies in the US today. I believe that becoming a dividend champion is no accident, and it is a result of a strong business that has generated earnings growth for a long period of time. These are the types of businesses I like to study, and potentially consider at the right time for my dividend portfolio. I believe that the dividend champions list offers a more complete picture than the dividend aristocrats.
The creator of the Dividend Champions list was David Fish, who unfortunately died in 2018. I decided to do annual updates based on his work.This year, I decided to keep it simple, and kept the data per each company to a minimum.
As a starting point, there were 139 companies on the dividend champions list at the end of 2022.
There were two companies that ended up leaving the Dividend Champions list in 2023. These companies left for various reasons. The companies that left include:
- MDU Resources (MDU) - the company cut dividends after a spin-off. That ended its 32 year streak.
- V.F. Corp (VFC) - the company cut dividends twice in 2023 after a 50 year streak of annual dividend raises
DGI Note: Walgreens Boots Alliance (WBA) just cut dividends on January 4th, after the list was compiled.
The number in brackets is the number of year of consecutive annual dividend increases for each of these five companies.
There were eight companies added to the list in 2023. These companies achieved dividend champion status by raising dividends to shareholders for 25 years in a row. The companies include:
Alerus Financial Corporation (ALRS)
Cambridge Bancorp (CATC)
CCFNB Bancorp, Inc. (CCFN)
Citizens Financial Services (CZFS)
Enterprise Products Partners (EPD)
Norwood Financial Corp. (NWFL)
Prosperity Bancshares, Inc. (PB)
Republic Bancorp, Inc. (RBCAA)
All of this brings the list of dividend champions to 145 companies by the end of 2023. You can download the list from here.
Note: Data as of 12/31/2023
DGI Note: Walgreens Boots Alliance (WBA) just cut dividends on January 4th, after the list was compiled.
