Suncorp tipped to deliver strong dividend yield
Suncorp remains attractive from an income perspective, despite posting a 1.5 per cent drop in full-year profit, says Morningstar analyst David Ellis.
Mentioned: Suncorp Group Ltd (SUN)
David Ellis: Suncorp's top-line revenue growth was positive. It was about 3 per cent up on 2017, which – it's not strong, but at least, it's positive. The key takeaway from Suncorp's result was the second half performance. The second half performance for Suncorp was strong. They are spending a lot of money and time and effort on what they call as a business improvement program – a program they are estimating will generate net benefits of close to $200 million in 2019 and over $300 million in 2020.
One of the highlights of the result was the special dividend. They paid an $0.08 per share fully-franked special dividend and they also announced the sale of their Life Insurance business. So, they are expecting to sell that business for $775 million after costs and other associated expenses. Suncorp are estimating about $600 million will be returned to shareholders by a capital return. Probably works out around about $0.45 a share approximately. So, that will occur during 2019 financial year.
Suncorp is attractive from an income perspective. So, they are paying high dividend payout on their ordinary shares. Their ordinary dividend payout was about 85 per cent. They paid an $0.08 special which takes their payout up to about 95% of their profit. Plus, assuming the sale of the Life business completes as expected, there will be a capital return to shareholders in the next 12 months or so.
I increased our fair value estimate for Suncorp by about 12 per cent to $14.50. Our previous fair value was $13 and as I said, I increased it to $14.50. It was trading yesterday, trading around about $15. So, it's still trading about 19 per cent above our fair value.