The DivGro Weekly—12.07.24

164 Consecutive dividend increases

Weekly Dividend Progress

This week we received further real-time, tangible evidence of outstanding business progress when we collected our quarterly dividends from FirstService and became entitled to our quarterly dividends from Roper Technologies, Mastercard and Intuit, all meaningfully higher than this time last year.

How We Are Tracking

Since DivGro's inception we have predicted and benefited from 164 consecutive dividend increases across our portfolio companies, with no decreases. The average rate of these dividend increases is 14.8%.

Roper Technologies

Since 1993, Roper Technologies has increased its dividend each year at an annualised rate of approximately 15 per cent. This phenomenal outcome is underpinned by the implementation of the “Roper Way”: a business strategy rooted in 130 years of history and driven by the domination of business-critical niches — initially in industrial applications, more recently in software applications. The thread du jour? These applications — which include, for example, tracking and billing software for toll roads — are central to any business operator in that space, who cannot function effectively without them. Critically, while Roper profits from leadership of these niches, there aren’t enough leftovers to whet the appetites of serious competitors. As such, this niche profile allows Roper a relatively free hand to gradually grow its share, either organically or by acquisition. When, ultimately, it secures niche dominance, Roper takes price to maximise profits. Given the near-limitless breadth of possible niches, the company faces an extensive horizon of opportunities to build upon its remarkable dividend growth.