All of our Dividend Champions have now reported results for the calendar second quarter. If you’d like to read more about each company’s performance, please check the Canadian Edge Weekly archive.

Despite some disappointing results, none of our Dividend Champions lowered or omitted their dividends. This is a key quality of our favorite stocks: the ability to sustain dividends even when business conditions are tough. Strong balance sheets, good cash flow, and low payout ratios are all characteristics that our Dividend Champions have in common.

Over the past 12 months, the Dividend Champions have grown their payouts by an average of 5.9%, with the top performance coming from Canadian National Railway (NYSE: CNI, TSX: CNR), whose dividend is 23% higher than a year ago. Another 12 companies increased their dividends by more than 5%, which is at least double the rate of inflation and implies income growth in real terms.  

We also find it instructive to break down the portfolio into categories that combine yield and growth characteristics. First, our “sweet spot” group contains the companies that have a yield between 3% and 5%, with year-over-year dividend growth of 5% to 10%.

This stable group includes names such as BCE (NYSE: BCE, TSX: BCE), Brookfield Infrastructure Partners LP (NYSE: BIP, TSX: BIP-U), Fortis (OTC: FRTSF, TSX: FTS), Inter Pipeline Ltd. (OTC: IPPLF, TSX: IPL), North West Company (OTC: NWTUF, TSX: NWC), Sun Life Financial (NYSE: SLF, TSX: SLF) and Telus Corp. (NYSE: TU, TSX: T).

A second group contains potential “problem children” with low yields and dividend growth that’s not quite fast enough to compensate for them. K-Bro Linen (OTC: KBRLF, TSX: INN-U) and ShawCor (OTC: SAWLF, TSX: SCL) fall into this group. We will continue to hold these stocks because we believe that dividend growth will resume in 2017 or 2018 for both companies.

A third group contains our high yielders that have little or no growth. RioCan REIT (OTC: RIOCF, TSX: REI) is the sole stock in this category. Although the REIT has not increased its distribution since January 2013, the large windfall profit from the sale of its U.S. property portfolio could allow the firm to boost its payout later this year or in 2017.

The table below lists the latest dividend details for our Dividend Champions.