I went to the AGM in 2016 amongst a number of AGM's that year....

I went to the AGM in 2016 amongst a number of AGM's that year. Wellcom's was easily the most impressive and very professional particularly given the relatively small size of the company. Financially, the business has been a very consistent performer since IPO in 2005. Wellcom has grown partly by organic and partly by manageable size acquisitions. There has always been surplus cash available for dividends which have grown or remained stable every year except 2009 when they retreated from 13 to 12c per share. That was at a time when many blue chip companies were slashing or not paying dividends during the GFC.

Dividends are far from being the most important measure of company performance. The capital could be far more valuable to shareholders if used for value accretive acquisition or growth strategies. But at WLL the capital allocation juggling act has been handled with great skill. It is worth noting that today the gross dividend yield is a tick under 8% and history shows that is a real number. However, we are not only paying lower prices for dividends we are getting retained capital, the assets, future earnings and the IP of the company cheaper as well.