Readers hoping to buy The Becker Milk Company Limited (TSE:BEK.B) for its dividend will need to make their move shortly, as the stock is about to trade ex-dividend. The ex-dividend date is one business day before a company's record date, which is the date on which the company determines which shareholders are entitled 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. In other words, investors can purchase Becker Milk's shares before the 19th of March in order to be eligible for the dividend, which will be paid on the 28th of March.

The company's upcoming dividend is CA$0.40 a share, following on from the last 12 months, when the company distributed a total of CA$0.80 per share to shareholders. Based on the last year's worth of payments, Becker Milk has a trailing yield of 6.3% on the current stock price of CA$12.63. 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! So we need to investigate whether Becker Milk can afford its dividend, and if the dividend could grow.

See our latest analysis for Becker Milk

Dividends are usually paid out of company profits, so if a company pays out more than it earned then its dividend is usually at greater risk of being cut. Its dividend payout ratio is 87% of profit, which means the company is paying out a majority of its earnings. The relatively limited profit reinvestment could slow the rate of future earnings growth. It could become a concern if earnings started to decline. 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. Becker Milk paid out more free cash flow than it generated - 185%, to be precise - last year, which we think is concerningly 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.

While Becker Milk's dividends were covered by the company's reported profits, cash is somewhat more important, so it's not great to see that the company didn't generate enough cash to pay its dividend. Cash is king, as they say, and were Becker Milk to repeatedly pay dividends that aren't well covered by cashflow, we would consider this a warning sign.

Click here to see how much of its profit Becker Milk paid out over the last 12 months.

Have Earnings And Dividends Been Growing?

Companies with falling earnings are riskier for dividend shareholders. If business enters a downturn and the dividend is cut, the company could see its value fall precipitously. With that in mind, we're discomforted by Becker Milk's 19% per annum decline in earnings in the past five years. Ultimately, when earnings per share decline, the size of the pie from which dividends can be paid, shrinks.