Anglo American plc (LON:AAL) is about to trade ex-dividend in the next four days. Typically, the ex-dividend date is one business day before the record date which is the date on which a company determines the shareholders eligible to receive a dividend. The ex-dividend date is important because any transaction on a stock needs to have been settled before the record date in order to be eligible for a dividend. Accordingly, Anglo American investors that purchase the stock on or after the 17th of August will not receive the dividend, which will be paid on the 26th of September.

The company's next dividend payment will be US$0.55 per share, on the back of last year when the company paid a total of US$1.29 to shareholders. Looking at the last 12 months of distributions, Anglo American has a trailing yield of approximately 4.7% on its current stock price of £21.51. We love seeing companies pay a dividend, but it's also important to be sure that laying the golden eggs isn't going to kill our golden goose! That's why we should always check whether the dividend payments appear sustainable, and if the company is growing.

View our latest analysis for Anglo American

If a company pays out more in dividends than it earned, then the dividend might become unsustainable – hardly an ideal situation. Anglo American paid out 75% of its earnings to investors last year, a normal payout level for most businesses. Yet cash flows are even more important than profits for assessing a dividend, so we need to see if the company generated enough cash to pay its distribution. Over the past year it paid out 169% of its free cash flow as dividends, which is uncomfortably high. We're curious about why the company paid out more cash than it generated last year, since this can be one of the early signs that a dividend may be unsustainable.

Anglo American paid out less in dividends than it reported in profits, but unfortunately it didn't generate enough cash to cover the dividend. Were this to happen repeatedly, this would be a risk to Anglo American's ability to maintain its dividend.

Click here to see the company's payout ratio, plus analyst estimates of its future dividends.

historic-dividendHave Earnings And Dividends Been Growing?

Companies with falling earnings are riskier for dividend shareholders. Investors love dividends, so if earnings fall and the dividend is reduced, expect a stock to be sold off heavily at the same time. With that in mind, we're discomforted by Anglo American's 7.0% per annum decline in earnings in the past five years. Such a sharp decline casts doubt on the future sustainability of the dividend.

The main way most investors will assess a company's dividend prospects is by checking the historical rate of dividend growth. Anglo American has delivered 4.8% dividend growth per year on average over the past 10 years. Growing the dividend payout ratio while earnings are declining can deliver nice returns for a while, but it's always worth checking for when the company can't increase the payout ratio any more – because then the music stops.

Final Takeaway

Is Anglo American worth buying for its dividend? It's definitely not great to see earnings per share shrinking. The company paid out an acceptable percentage of its income, but an uncomfortably high percentage of its cash flow over the past year. It's not the most attractive proposition from a dividend perspective, and we'd probably give this one a miss for now.

Although, if you're still interested in Anglo American and want to know more, you'll find it very useful to know what risks this stock faces. Case in point: We've spotted 3 warning signs for Anglo American you should be aware of.

Generally, we wouldn't recommend just buying the first dividend stock you see. Here's a curated list of interesting stocks that are strong dividend payers.

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