Recent Buy: Unilever

 A few days ago I added to my existing position in Unilever (ticker: UL). I purchased my first 37 shares back in 2013 when the dividend yield was around 3,6%. The Price/Earnings-ratio at the time of my first purchas was around 20x. In those eight years the quarterly dividend has grown by almost 7% annualy. That's not too bad considering the starting yield. 

Subsequently I purchased additional shares in 2019 and 2020 with starting yields between 3,0 and 3,2%. The P/E-ratio hovered between 17-20x for those purchases. Currently Unilever is valued at a comparable forward P/E-ratio but with a somewhat higher starting yield of 3,6%. 

Even though my position in Unilever is already slightly bigger than average, I decided to increase my position by purchasing another 18 shares for €46,85 per share. This purchase added about €30 to my forward dividend income which currently stands at about € 2.070 before tax.

What do you tink of my purchase of Unilever?

Recent buy: TROW

A few days ago I added to my existing position in T. Rowe Price (ticker: TROW). I purchased my first 20 shares back in 2016 when the dividend yield was around 2,9%. The Price/Earnings-ratio at the time of my first purchas was around 17,5x. In those five years the quarterly dividend has exactly doubled, and the share price followed suit. The shares of TROW outperformed the S&P500 by a wide margin. Needless to say I am more than satisfied with this investment.

Currently TROW is valued more or less at the same P/E-ratio albeit with a slighly lower dividend yield. The company is firing on all cylinders, has improved its net income margin, decreased the number of oustanding shares by almost 10% and still has no debt whatsoever. Obviously the performance was boosted by increasing share prices accross the board.

Even though my position in TROW was already slightly bigger than average, I decided to increase my position by 50% by purchasing another 10 shares for $ 176,70 per share. This purchase added about $43  to my forward dividend income which currently stands at about € 2.060 before tax.

What do you tink of my purchase of TROW?

Dividend report: March 2021

March is over! Let's see how many companies sent me a dividend check for my ownership. These checks are the results of decisions I made earlier in life, sometimes years ago, where I decided to purchase shares in these companies. Nowaydays I still collect these checks but I have to do absolutely nothing to receive them. They just get deposited in my brokerage account, no questions asked. Isn't that great?!

Based on a constant exchange rate my dividend income grew by about 7%. It's not bad considering what happened last year when Shell had a major dividend cut. However, I did have some nice raises last year, for instance from BBL and TROW and Aflac. I also added to my position in Aflac last year and opened a new position in BIP.

All in all I received more than € 200 after tax from my investments, which is a milestone! Besides the month of January when I receive my annual dividend in Brink, I have never reached such a high passive income. I might not reach this milestone again for six months because of the semi-annual payout from BBL but we'll see what happens!

With a great first month, a decent 2nd and a fine 3rd month, 2021 is off to a good start. With my latest addition in Ahold Delhaize my dividend income increased to more than € 2.000. Let's keep it going! 

How was your March?

Recent buy: Ahold-Delhaize

I few days ago I started a position in Ahold Delhaize (ticker: AD). I outlined my reasons in my recent Seeking Alpha article which you can read here. I want to strengthen my Euro-denominated part of the portfolio. Ahold Delhaize yields around 3,9% and raised its dividend with a whopping 18% last time around. It is reasonably priced at the moment (at least in my opinion). It offers a stable business model with room to grow with its online business like Bol.com.

I added 60 shares for about € 23 per share. This purchase will add € 54 to my annual dividend income stream which stands at around € 2.025 pre-tax. With this purchse I reached a milestone of € 2.000 in dividend income! My next milestone will be € 2.400 (which is €200 per month on average). Hopefully I can reach this by the end of the year!

What do you think of my purchase?

Ahold Delhaize: A Big European Retailer At A Reasonable Price

I’ve been a dividend investor for almost eight years. One of my first purchases back in 2013 was Walmart (WMT). This purchase was successful based on the total return of around 10% per year, but the dividend growth has been rather slow. Right now I want to increase the Euro-denominated part of my dividend portfolio. This article will explain why I chose to start a position in Koninklijke Ahold Delhaize, a competitor of Walmart in the US market.

Business model

Ahold Delhaize (ADRNY) is a Dutch grocery retail company. Its business model includes supermarkets, convenience stores, hypermarkets, online grocery, online non-food, drugstores, and liquor stores. It’s focused on the US and European market. In the US the biggest local brands are Food Lion, Stop & Shop and Giant. In Europe the biggest local brands are Albert Heijn (The Netherlands), Delhaize (Belgium) and Mega Image (Romania). Roughly 40% of revenues are made in Europe and the other 60% in US markets. The biggest competitors in the US markets are (among others) Walmart, Target (TGT) and Kroger (KR).

Read the rest of the article at Seeking Alpha!

Dividend report: February 2021

February is over! Let's see how many companies sent me a dividend check for my ownership. These checks are the results of decisions I made earlier in life, sometimes years ago, where I decided to purchase shares in these companies. Nowaydays I still collect these checks but I have to do absolutely nothing to receive them. They just get deposited in my brokerage account, no questions asked. Isn't that great?!

Based on a constant exchange rate my dividend income grew by just under 10%. It's not bad considering what happened last year. The lack of dividend increases between Deere, OHI and AT&T and a measly increase from Realty Income (O) is starting to take its toll. Luckily, Deere announced a pretty sweet dividend raise last week, so in the next quarter that row will look a lot better in comparison with the year before! One of my latest additions Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMY) also paid its first dividend in february. However, due to changes in the exchange rate by dividend income in euro's (€) is more or less the same as last year. Nothing to worry, as that will probably change later in time or life.

With a great first month, and a decent 2nd, 2021 is off to a good start. In the last two weeks I also received several dividend increases which raised my forward dividend income to € 1.940. I will start to see these effects later on this year. It's cool to note that during these two months I received more dividend income than the whole of 2014 (my first full year of dividend investering). If I add the coming month of March I will (almost) surpass the whole of 2015, 2016 and 2017 as well (not combined obviously!). 

With the marktet upswing in February I also reached a new milestone in terms of portfolio value. I reached the € 50.000 milestone! The last € 10.000 took about 17 months which is about the same as the € 10.000 before that. I hope to reach the next €10.000 a bit faster and plan to increase my monthly contribution going forward. More on that in a later post because I used a little bit of financial engineering for that!

How was your second month of the year?

Three recent dividend increases - part 2 (Coca, Walmart and Deere)

 A few days ago I wrote about three recent dividend increases. The pace of raises continues with a few new raises! Of course I am happy with these raises, especially after a somewhat sobering 2020 in terms of dividend growth. So let's take a look at the raises.

Coca-Cola

On February 18th Coca-Cola (KO) declared a $0.42/share quarterly dividend, which is a 2.4% increase from its prior dividend of $0.41. Last year KO increased its dividend by a penny as well. I received eight dividend raises since my purchase of KO back in 2013. The annual dividend growth rate is between 5-6%. It's not mindblowing but it's not that bad either. My return on investment is currently around 8% per annum so I am not complaining.

Walmart

On February 18th Walmart (WMT) declared a $0.55/share quarterly dividend, which is a 1.9% increase from its prior dividend of $0.54. It's not a big raise but its one nonetheless.  I received eight dividend raises since my purchase of WMT back in 2013. The annual dividend growth rate is 2%. I guess my expectations with regards to the dividend growth rate were somewhat higher. However, my return on investment is currently around 11% per annum so that definitely IS solid. We'll see what happens next year with the dividend!

Deere

On February 24th Deere (DE) declared a $0.90/share quarterly dividend, which is a 18% increase from its prior dividend of $0.76. Now that's what I call dividend growth! I received four dividend raises since my purchase of DE back in 2013. The dividend growth occurs on a not so frequent basis. The last dividend raise was about two years ago. The annual dividend growth rate is 8% nonetheless. My purchase of Deere is the best decision I ever made (investment wise that is!) with a return on investment of around 23% per annum. That's a 3.7x-bagger right there! 

Summary

Together these raises increased my forward annual dividend income by roughly €10. 

Based on my portfolio's dividend yield of 3,8% I have to invest € 270 to get this kind of dividend income, but now I get it for free! Rock on!