Dividend Watch: ClickSoftware vs. 'Others' (CKSW, AMSWA, MSFT, QADA)

It was just last week that ClickSoftware Technologies Ltd. (NASDAQ: CKSW) managed to beat earnings, but what the company also did was begin a dividend policy.  The company has a mere $301 million market cap and with earnings it updated its cash and liquidity as being $51.9 million.  We want to look closer, but we also want to see how this stacks against some peers or other companies in software.

The company’s share price today is $9.80 and its $0.08 dividend will come to a $0.32 payout per year, or offer investors today a yield of about 3.25%.  As far as how this compares to earnings estimates, the Thomson Reuters consensus estimates for 2011 and 2012 are $0.47 EPS and $0.60 EPS, respectively.

ClickSoftware does not have an endless group of peers.  The Israeli company offers workforce and service management software products and solutions for scheduling and routing to monitor field workforce activity.  If you look through the sector “Internet Software & Services” then it leads peers now in its payout.  If you look at application software, something we feel more closely aligned to for ClickSoftware, the following software yields can be found, with markets caps to follow:

American Software, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMSWA) has a 4.6% yield with a $200 million market cap; its $0.09 per quarter dividend has been in place since the end of 2007.

Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ: MSFT) has a 2.5% yield but a $216 billion market cap; its $0.16 per quarter payout has only been in place for two quarters.

QAD Inc. (NASDAQ: QADA) has an implied 2.2% yield with a $177 million market cap; the difference is that this is a new dividend and it can be received either in cash or in stock.

JON C. OGG