The DivGro Weekly—07.02.25
181 Consecutive dividend increases
Weekly Dividend Progress
This week we received further real-time, tangible evidence of outstanding business progress when Pepsico increased its dividend by 5% and FirstService increased its dividend by 10%. We also received our quarterly dividends from Stryker and Watsco and became entitled to our quarterly dividends from Texas Instruments, all meaningfully higher than this time last year.
How We Are Tracking
Since DivGro's inception we have predicted and benefited from 181 consecutive dividend increases across our portfolio companies, with no decreases. The average rate of these dividend increases is 14.42%.
FirstService
FirstService’s origin story dates back to the early 1970s, when it began as a swimming pool maintenance operation. Over the next 50+ years, the company evolved into the dominant leader in North America in essential property management services (such as strata management) and the leading operator of affiliated property and restoration services (think pool maintenance). This favourable position enables FirstService to offer equivalent — if not superior — services at sharper prices than its highly fragmented and smaller competitors, endearing the company to owner-occupiers and investor-owners who are extremely service- and cost-sensitive. Moreover, FirstService’s customers benefit by dealing with fewer vendors, who can address a multitude of maintenance, service and restoration issues, rather than having to coordinate with disparate service providers. Consequently, FirstServe’s existing customer churn is significantly reduced and, simultaneously, the company can take share from competitors, expanding its growth horizons. Plus, its ancillary property services enjoy a captive market to be cross-sold to, exemplified by its recent acquisition of Roofing Corp of America. The company’s unique ability to profitably grow its core business while selling affiliated adjacencies enables it to reinvest aggressively for expansion, broadening the landscape upon which it can continue to build its impressive dividend growth record.