Regis Healthcare Limited (ASX:REG) stock is about to trade ex-dividend in 4 days. The ex-dividend date is one business day before the record date, which is the cut-off date for shareholders to be present on the company's books to be eligible for a dividend payment. The ex-dividend date is an important date to be aware of as any purchase of the stock made on or after this date might mean a late settlement that doesn't show on the record date. Accordingly, Regis Healthcare investors that purchase the stock on or after the 14th of March will not receive the dividend, which will be paid on the 11th of April.

The company's next dividend payment will be AU$0.0628 per share, on the back of last year when the company paid a total of AU$0.095 to shareholders. Based on the last year's worth of payments, Regis Healthcare stock has a trailing yield of around 2.5% on the current share price of AU$3.80. If you buy this business for its dividend, you should have an idea of whether Regis Healthcare's dividend is reliable and sustainable. We need to see whether the dividend is covered by earnings and if it's growing.

See our latest analysis for Regis Healthcare

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. Regis Healthcare paid a dividend last year despite being unprofitable. This might be a one-off event, but it's not a sustainable state of affairs in the long run. Considering the lack of profitability, we also need to check if the company generated enough cash flow to cover the dividend payment. If Regis Healthcare didn't generate enough cash to pay the dividend, then it must have either paid from cash in the bank or by borrowing money, neither of which is sustainable in the long term. Luckily it paid out just 22% of its free cash flow last year.

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

Have Earnings And Dividends Been Growing?

Companies with falling earnings are riskier for dividend shareholders. If earnings decline and the company is forced to cut its dividend, investors could watch the value of their investment go up in smoke. Regis Healthcare reported a loss last year, and the general trend suggests its earnings have also been declining in recent years, making us wonder if the dividend is at risk.

Many investors will assess a company's dividend performance by evaluating how much the dividend payments have changed over time. Regis Healthcare's dividend payments per share have declined at 6.6% per year on average over the past nine years, which is uninspiring. While it's not great that earnings and dividends per share have fallen in recent years, we're encouraged by the fact that management has trimmed the dividend rather than risk over-committing the company in a risky attempt to maintain yields to shareholders.