12 Best Dividend Contenders With High Growth And Low Debt

 | Sep 11, 2012 03:41AM ET

Dividend Growth Stocks create value in the long-run with rising dividends. A major group of stocks have a fantastic dividend growth history. But stocks with a very long history are also highly priced. Today, we're focusing on dividend stocks from the second tier, sometimes called Dividend Contenders. Such stocks have increased dividends over a period of more than 10 years but less than 25. Exactly 176 Contenders are tradeable.

In order to find the best dividend paying growth stocks from this investment class, I screened all companies with a positive dividend yield, great earnings per share growth of more than 10 percent and an operating margin over 20 percent. To get the best results in terms of low debt and high cash, the debt to equity ratio should be under 0.5. Twenty-four Contenders remained of which three stocks yielding over three percent and fifteen are currently recommended to buy.

Tiffany & Co. (NYSE:TIF) has a market capitalization of $7.98 billion. The company employs 9,800 people, generates revenue of $3,642.94 million and has a net income of $439.19 million. The firm’s earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) amounts to $858.55 million. The EBITDA margin is 23.57 percent (operating margin 19.45 percent and net profit margin 12.06 percent).

Financial Analysis: The total debt represents 17.12 percent of the company’s assets and the total debt in relation to the equity amounts to 30.32 percent. Due to the financial situation, a return on equity of 19.41 percent was realized. Twelve trailing months earnings per share reached a value of $3.44. Last fiscal year, the company paid $1.12 in form of dividends to shareholders. The company raised dividends over a period of 10 consecutive years and the earnings are expected to grow by 12.57 percent for the next five years.

Market Valuation: Here are the price ratios of the company: The P/E ratio is 18.32, P/S ratio 2.18 and P/B ratio 3.38. Dividend Yield: 2.04 percent. The beta ratio is 1.81.