Archer Daniels Midland – A Fairly Valued Dividend Growth Stock

The company founded in 1902 as Daniels Linseed Co. in Minneapolis, and changed name to Archer Daniels Midland Company in 1923. Today, they are one of the world's largest agricultural processors and food ingredient providers, with more than 32,000 employees in more than 160 countries. The company's primary business segments are Agricultural Services, Corn Processing, Oilseeds Processing and Wild Flacors and Specialty Ingredients.

Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) is a dividend aristocrat, which increased it's dividend in the last 41 years. So I think it has really good track record to look at it's numbers.

ADM increased it's revenue from $44.018 billion to $62.346 billion over the period spanning fiscal years 2007 to 2016. That's a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 3.94%. 

 

Over the same 10-year period, the company's diluted earnings per share decreased from $3.30 to $2.16, which is a CAGR of -4.60%.

It's not so impressive, but take a look at a little longer period. ADM increased it's diluted EPS from $0.76 to $2.16 over the period spanning fiscal years 2004 to 2016. That's a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 9.09%. I saw that the company's EPS showing great changing from one year to another.

Despite of the changing EPS, the company is paying out a much more predictable dividend. As I mentioned earlier the company increased it's dividend in the last 41 years, with a ten year CAGR 12.08%. The dividend yield is 3.11% with the last closing price. ($41.14) It's higher than the ADM's five year average. (2.4%)

The payout ratio is 51.20% now, which is managable.

Because of the decreasing EPS and increasing dividend the payout ratio increased constantly in the last 10 years. (In the fiscal year 2007 the payout ratio was only 13.03%.)

The Debt/Equity ratio is 0.42, which is really good.

ADM has a 17.4 P/E ratio, which is slightly lower than the ADM's five year average (18.1) and it's below the stock market's P/E ratio. The forward P/E ratio is 13.92, so the company is expecting a better financial performance in fiscal year 2017, than in 2016.

What is the value of ADM?

I valued shares using the dividend discount model. I factored in a 10% discount rate and a long-term dividend growth rate of 7%.

That growth rate is roughly on par with the company’s long-term EPS growth rate, and I think it’s reasonable when also looking at the recent dividend growth or payout ratio. The DDM analysis gives me a fair value of $42.67.

Disclosure: I have no position in ADM.

I wrote this article myself, and it expresses my own opinions. I am not receiving compensation for it. I have no business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article.