Abbott (NYSE:ABT)

Abbott Laboratories is a American pharmaceutical company, founded in Chicago in 1888 by Wallace Calvin Abbott. It is engaged in the development, manufacture and sale of a diversified line of health care products, including: drugs, nutritional products, and diabetes monitoring and diagnostic devices. Its headquarters are in Abbott Park in North Chicago. Today, Abbott has approximately 90,000 employees.

ABT has a relatively strong pipeline of products, with potential significant launches in medical devices and pharmaceuticals. The company is financially strong, with a strong balance sheet and an excellent return on capital employed. In 2008, operating revenue consisted of 57% of pharmaceutical products, 17% of nutritional products, 11% of diagnostic products, 8% of vascular products and 7% of other products. Still the same year, Foreign sales represented 52%, which protects the stock against dollar fluctuations, a fall in the greenback favoring exports.

ABT offers a decent long-term dividend yield of 3.09%. The company has increased distributions for 38 consecutive years. Medium-term dividend growth is also decent, at 10.69%. The payout ratio remains attractive, at 59.46%, giving Abbott some room in case of a difficult transition. Furthermore, the volatility of the title in CHF is only 9.66%, benefiting from ABT's strong international exposure and the defensive sector in which the company is positioned.

Without being extraordinary, the fundamentals from a dividend point of view are in line with the company: discreet, solid, regular and sustainable. ABT is a bit of a mix between La Fontaine's turtle and ant.This strategy is effective in the long term since the title has gained more than 4,000% in 30 years and despite this the company remains cheap both from the point of view of dividends and profits.

Our analysis model of course considers that Abbott is always a buying opportunity today.