The DivGro Weekly—07.08.26

222 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 Danaher, Lowe’s, Stryker and Watsco, all meaningfully higher than this time last year.

How We Are Tracking

Since DivGro's inception we have predicted and benefited from 222 consecutive dividend increases across our portfolio companies, with no decreases. The average rate of these dividend increases is 13.9%.

Lowe’s

A lowest-cost leader such as Lowe’s is blessed with a choice: maximise immediate profits or share its cost advantage with customers via lower pricing, making it near-impossible for competitors with higher cost structures to encroach on its turf. By consistently opting to share its growing scale benefits with customers, Lowe’s predictably continues to lead the US home improvement channel more than a century after its founding (together with companion DivGro holding Home Depot). Equally predictably, as a result of this dynamic, Lowe’s and Home Depot grow faster than the $1 trillion home improvement market, capturing market share in every environment. Whilst certain maintenance and repair projects may be postponed for a while, they cannot be deferred forever — particularly as houses continue to progressively age, with the average North American home now more than 40 years old, a key inflection point in maintenance needs. This upkeep trajectory, together with Lowe’s advantaged cost leadership, bodes extremely well for continuing annual dividend increases — having already raised its dividend each year since its 1961 IPO at a rate north of 15% per annum compounded which has helped drive its stock price around 7000x.