Dividend Valuation Models

[Snoopy]

Just looking at dividend history for Contact Energy on the NZX but the NZX site only has two years unless you want to pay $4,695 per annum.

Dividendyield.co.nz (thanks Birmanboy)and Contacts website both have the cash dividend paid but not the imputation credits attached. Same with the IRG yearbook.

Is there anywhere I can find the gross dividend including imputation credits attached as Contact does not always attach them at 28%.

Aaron, I have done a bit of work myself on Contact dividends in the past. It is no longer quite up to date but you may find some of my historic posts on the CEN thread gives you a start. I have been a Contact Energy shareholder since day 1. So I was able to calculate the rate of imputation from my own dividend statements.

Post 1590 titled 'The overoptimisation of imputation credits' is here.

https://www.sharetrader.co.nz/showth...end#post757386

That post shows the somewhat patchy imputation record since the FY2015 50c 'special dividend'. That special dividend cleared out imputation credits before Origin Energy departed from the share register. IIRC the interim and final dividends were all fully imputed before this.

There is a problem with using historical dividends to value Contact Energy though. In FY2018 Contact changed their dividend policy to pay out 100% of 'Operating Free Cashflow', up from 80% of 'Operating Free Cashflow'. That means that the historical dividend payout is not representative of what would have happened had the FY2018 onward dividend policy been in place. I did the exercise and worked out what the dividend would have been over the previous ten years, had the current dividend policy been in place. This work is from the same page, my post 1579 titled. "FY2018 Dividend Policy: Scenario Analysis (2018 Perspective)".

Would there be a section in the company annual report that would cover this without me having to read all 90 odd pages to find the info?

There is a section on the dividend in each annual report. However, I am not sure it lists the detailed imputation credit details that you asked about.

I want the gross dividend information as using the cash paid would be like getting an interest rate based on net interest paid without know at what rate tax was deducted. Or have I got that wrong?

No, I think you have it right!

I do have the history of cash payments so maybe someone has an idea how I could use that, such as assuming fully imputed dividends (but risk over estimating).

No need to do that. That first post I referenced should give you the imputation credit information that you require, up until EOFY2018 at least! HTH.

SNOOPY