The DivGro Weekly—12.05.23

132 Consecutive dividend increases

This week we received further real-time, tangible evidence of outstanding business progress when Pool Corp raised its dividend by 10%.

We also collected our quarterly dividends from Mastercard and Lowe's and became entitled to our dividends from MSCI, MarketAxess, Visa and Texas Instruments, all materially higher than this time last year.

Since DivGro's inception we have predicted and benefited from 132 consecutive dividend increases across our portfolio companies. The average rate of these dividend increases is 15.4%.

Texas Instruments (TI), with roots tracing back to 1930, is our global leader in analog semiconductors. TI's competitive advantages emanate from leadership in quality, breadth of product, and cost structure, meaning it can offer more products that are both better and cheaper. A further differentiator is TI's industry-leading financial strength, which enables it to maintain much more extensive inventory levels than competitors which cannot afford to hold so much product while waiting for customer orders to materialise. Analog semiconductors are conducive to TI's enlightened inventory approach because they enjoy very long product lifecycles unlike many other product categories. This ability to have product available to immediately satisfy demand endears customers to TI, thereby maintaining and growing market share over time. These critical advantages have underpinned TI's formidable dividend record, having raised its dividend over 20% per annum compounded over the last 19 years.