On the radar, page-4

Soul Patts is one of my core holdings and has managed to return a great mix of a growth and income for over two decades. They are very unlikely to break their 24 year streak in growing their dividend and are prudent in raising it just enough year on year to retain this accolade. An example is in recent years where they received an excess in earnings from their stake in New Hope Corporation (due to an unexpected heightened coal price, from flow on affects of the Ukraine & Russia conflict), they opted to pay a special dividend during 2022 so as to not overextend and raise in their underlying dividend too much, this safeguards them in future years if their overall cash flow potentially becomes a little tighter across their portfolio, and allows them to maintain their consistently growing dividend.

Their overall portfolio composition is also made up mostly of mature cash flow generative businesses; take their strategic portfolio for example: BKW, TPG, NHC, all fairly mature businesses creating fairly stable cash flows. Then you have the large cap ASX portfolio which was inherited through the Milton merger, this in itself would be producing some decent franked dividend yields which further adds to Soul Patts ability to pass on cash to shareholders.

I agree with the general sentiment in this thread that the company is gaining more traction in attracting investors who can look a little deeper regarding growth and income and the paradox of taking a seemingly lower yield combined with a growth story, as opposed to a higher yield and minimal growth alternatives. The yield has sat around 3-4% for years, however as Chris60 mentioned, depending on your entry price you have won out on both growth in share price and with that the growth of your income relative to your initial buy in price, a compounding dream.

A lot of your typical 'income' plays have much higher yields than Soul Patts, but the growth and/or reliability of the dividend is usually abysmal, take Telstra for example which manages to make it's way into most generic income portfolios - a terrible story for growth, and a fluctuating dividend that changes year on year - I know which business I'd rather own.