19 Dividend Contenders With Good Dividend Growth Potential

 | May 24, 2013 07:49AM ET

When I consider buying a stock, I always look at a company's fundamentals. The current yields and P/Es are a first step but both are only two of hundreds criteria.

If you like to evaluate the future dividend growth you should definitely look at the debt situation and the payout ratio. Also important is the expected growth. Only a growing company can hike its dividends in the long-run without paying out capital assets and destroying shareholder value.

Today I'm focusing on Dividend Contenders with the highest dividend payout potential.These are my criteria:

- Payout ratio below 30 percent
- Long-Term Debt to equity under 0.2
- Market Capitalization over 300 million

C.H. Robinson Worldwide (CHRW) has a market capitalization of $9.55 billion. The company employs 10,929 people, generates revenue of $11.359 billion and has a net income of $593.80 million. The firm’s earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) amounts to $719.72 million. The EBITDA margin is 6.34 percent (the operating margin is 5.95 percent and the net profit margin 5.23 percent).

Financial Analysis: The total debt represents 11.47 percent of the company’s assets and the total debt in relation to the equity amounts to 21.38 percent. Due to the financial situation, a return on equity of 43.14 percent was realized. Twelve trailing months earnings per share reached a value of $3.66. Last fiscal year, the company paid $1.34 in the form of dividends to shareholders.

Market Valuation: Here are the price ratios of the company: The P/E ratio is 16.26, the P/S ratio is 0.84 and the P/B ratio is finally 6.34. The dividend yield amounts to 2.37 percent and the beta ratio has a value of 0.65.