It looks like FB Financial Corporation (NYSE:FBK) is about to go ex-dividend in the next four days. The ex-dividend date is one business day before the record date, which is the cut-off date for shareholders to be present on the company's books to be eligible for a dividend payment. The ex-dividend date is important because any transaction on a stock needs to have been settled before the record date in order to be eligible for a dividend. Therefore, if you purchase FB Financial's shares on or after the 12th of February, you won't be eligible to receive the dividend, when it is paid on the 27th of February.

The company's upcoming dividend is US$0.17 a share, following on from the last 12 months, when the company distributed a total of US$0.60 per share to shareholders. Looking at the last 12 months of distributions, FB Financial has a trailing yield of approximately 1.7% on its current stock price of US$35.99. Dividends are an important source of income to many shareholders, but the health of the business is crucial to maintaining those dividends. So we need to check whether the dividend payments are covered, and if earnings are growing.

See our latest analysis for FB Financial

Dividends are usually paid out of company profits, so if a company pays out more than it earned then its dividend is usually at greater risk of being cut. FB Financial is paying out just 23% of its profit after tax, which is comfortably low and leaves plenty of breathing room in the case of adverse events.

Generally speaking, the lower a company's payout ratios, the more resilient its dividend usually is.

Click here to see the company's payout ratio, plus analyst estimates of its future dividends.

Have Earnings And Dividends Been Growing?

Stocks with flat earnings can still be attractive dividend payers, but it is important to be more conservative with your approach and demand a greater margin for safety when it comes to dividend sustainability. If business enters a downturn and the dividend is cut, the company could see its value fall precipitously. With that in mind, we're not enthused to see that FB Financial's earnings per share have remained effectively flat over the past five years. Better than seeing them fall off a cliff, for sure, but the best dividend stocks grow their earnings meaningfully over the long run.

Many investors will assess a company's dividend performance by evaluating how much the dividend payments have changed over time. Since the start of our data, six years ago, FB Financial has lifted its dividend by approximately 16% a year on average.