Singtel

Singtel (SGX:Z74) shares declined to a price of 3.97 today, which somewhat brought attention to some investors. The man in the street might not know this but Singtel is the biggest company by market capitalization in Singapore. It is also generous with dividends.

I guess most investors are keen in Singtel for the dividends and not capital gains.

As you can see, Singtel's share price barely moves from 2009-2012 and then moves up another notch in 2013 and been such ever since.

That is the share price, let's take a look at earnings.
Year - Earnings Per Share (EPS) in cents
2016 - 24.26
2015 - 23.73
2014 - 22.87
2013 - 21.96
2012 - 24.97
2011 - 23.98
2010 - 24.46
2009 - 21.60
2008 - 24.76
2007 - 23.13
As you can see, EPS is largely the same over the last decade.

Singtel isn't the type of share that I will be interested in for a couple of good reasons
1) Largely no growth possibilities other than major M&A overseas.
2) No exciting new products.
3) A very large dividend payout ratio. It is paying out about 2.7 billion out of 3.8 billion of retained earnings in the last year. Below screen captured from Singtel's latest annual report...

 Out of 3.870B of earnings, it is paying out 2.789B, which translate to a 72% payout.

I think a growing dividend is not possible with this type of company... a growing dividend usually translate to a growing share price as well. If you are looking to acquire Singtel for dividends, it will be a better bet than Starhub, that is for sure, having a way better debt to equity ratio and lower dividend payout.