Kenya’s Co-operative Bank topped East Africa’s retail banks as the best dividend stock, signalling the lender’s increasing attractiveness to investors that are keen on cash dividend payouts.
Analysis from Africanfinancials shows the lender, which is listed on the Nairobi Securities Exchange (NSE), posted a dividend yield of 12.7 percent, the highest among the region’s top retail banks, in the six months to June 2023.
It was followed by Equity Bank (11.3 percent), KCB (9.6 percent), NCBA (11.2 percent) and DTB (10.4 percent).
Dividend stocks are shares of companies that pay investors a portion of company earnings on a regular basis.
According to experts at the global financial advisory firm Forbes, investors tend to view consistent dividends as a sign of a company’s strength and as an indicator that a management team has positive expectations around future earnings growth. This, in turn, makes a company more attractive to investors, which in turn helps to drive up its share price.