Income investors value reliability and consistency, as well as high dividend yields. Some stocks provide a combination of these factors, such as the Dividend Champions — stocks that have raised their payouts for at least 25 years in a row.
These companies have proven that they can manage through recessions, while continuing to pay dividends each year, and raise their dividends on an annual basis.
These 3 Dividend Champions have long histories of dividend growth, market-beating yields, and the ability to raise their dividends each year going forward.
Emerson Electric (EMR)
Emerson Electric operates in the industrial sector as a diversified global leader in technology and engineering. Its global customer base and diverse product and service offerings afford it just over $17 billion in annual revenue.
The company has increased its dividend for 68 consecutive years, making it a Dividend King.
Emerson posted first quarter earnings on February 5th, 2025, and results were mixed. Adjusted earnings-per-share came to $1.38, which was a dime ahead of estimates. Revenue was up 1.5% year-over-year to $4.18 billion. Underlying sales rose 2%, and adjusted segment EBITDA margin was 28% of revenue, a 340-basis point improvement from the year-ago period.
Gross profit reached a record level of 53.5% of revenue, supported by operational efficiencies, cost controls, and acquisition synergies. Free cash flow was $694 million, up 89% year-over-year, with working capital improvements being the primary driver. Emerson’s backlog rose to $7.3 billion, excluding forex translation impacts.
Emerson’s competitive advantage is in its many decades of experience in building customer relationships and engineering excellence. It has a global customer base that is seeing strong economic growth and that underlying sales tailwind should power results going forward.
Emerson is undergoing a significant shift in its strategy, whereby it is selling off legacy units and focusing more on automation and recurring revenue, with the Aspen acquisition being another example of this strategy in practice. We’re estimating growth of 9% as management remains bullish, and as there are signs of organic revenue growth improvement, as well as with respect to margins.
Sherwin-Williams (SHW)
Founded in 1866 and headquartered in Cleveland, OH, Sherwin-Williams is North America’s largest manufacturer of paints and coatings.
It distributes its products through wholesalers as well as retail stores (including a chain of more than 5,000 company-operated stores and facilities) to 120 countries under the Sherwin-Williams name. The company also manufactures Dutch Boy, Pratt & Lambert, Minwax, Thompson’s Waterseal, Krylon, Valspar (acquired in 2017), and other brands.
With 47 years of consecutive dividend increases, Sherwin-Williams is a member of the Dividend Champions, and with nearly 50 years of dividend hikes, SHW is a Dividend King in the making.
On January 30th, 2025, Sherwin-Williams released financial results for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2024. Sales grew 3% over the prior year’s quarter, primarily thanks to price hikes. In addition, gross margin expanded from 46.7% to 48.5%.
As a result, adjusted earnings-per-share grew 15%, from $1.81 to $2.09. Sherwin-Williams provided positive guidance for 2025. It expects sales to be up a low-single digit percentage, and earnings-per share of $11.65-$12.05.
Sherwin-Williams has put together an exceptionally strong growth record in the past, with earnings-per-share growing at a 13.2% average compound rate over the last decade. This has been driven by solid top line growth, significant margin improvement and a lower share count.
We believe that Sherwin-Williams can deliver 7% annualized earnings growth over a full economic cycle, roughly in line with its 5-year growth rate. Growth can come from several factors, including revenue expansion – resting on higher sales at the company’s existing stores – margin improvement, share repurchases, and general economic growth.
Becton, Dickinson & Co. (BDX)
Becton, Dickinson & Co. is a global leader in the medical supply industry. The company was founded in 1897 and has 75,000 employees across 190 countries.
The company generates about $20 billion in annual revenue, with approximately 43% of revenues coming from outside of the U.S.
On February 5th, 2025, BD released results for the first quarter of fiscal year 2025, which ended December 31st, 2024. For the quarter, revenue increased 9.8% to $5.17 billion, which was $60 million more than expected.
On a currency neutral basis, revenue improved 9.6%. Adjusted earnings-per-share of $3.43 compared favorably to $2.68 in the prior year and was $0.44 ahead of estimates.
For the quarter, U.S. grew 12% while international was up 6.7% on a reported basis. Excluding currency, international was higher by 6.3%. Organic growth was up 3.9% for the period.
The Medical segment grew 17.1% organically to $2.62 billion, mostly due to gains in Mediation Management Solutions and Medication Delivery Solutions. Life Science was up 0.5% to $1.3 billion.
BD provided an outlook for fiscal year 2025 as well. Revenue is projected to be in a range of $21.7 billion to $21.9 billion for the fiscal year, down from $21.9 billion to $22.1 billion previously. Adjusted earnings-per-share is expected to be in a range of $14.30 to $14.60.
BD has now increased its dividend for 53 consecutive years. This makes the company a member of the Dividend Kings. The dividend has a compound annual growth rate of 5.2% over the last 10 years.
Disclosure: No positions in any stocks mentioned
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Bob Ciura has worked at Sure Dividend since October 2016. He oversees all content for Sure Dividend and its partner sites. Bob received a Bachelor’s degree in Finance from DePaul
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