STO share price in focus
Santos Ltd is one of Australia’s largest oil and gas companies. Founded in the 1950’s, Santos owns and operates one of Australia’s largest portfolios of oil and gas fields, connected by extensive pipelines and complementary facilities.
The company started life as an exploration-focused business, and the name is an acronym for South Australia Northern Territory Oil Search.
Santos has recently faced criticism and court cases over their climate action targets, with the ACCR accusing the company of greenwashing. At present, Santos’ stated goal is to achieve net-zero Scope 1 & 2 emissions by 2040, however this does not account for Scope 3 emissions (those generated by the use of their products) which account for more than 75% of the company’s total emissions.
WES shares
Founded in 1914, Wesfarmers is a diversified Australian conglomerate headquartered in Perth. Its operations span retail, chemical, fertiliser, industrial and safety brands and products across Australia and New Zealand.
Wesfarmers is often compared to a publicly listed private equity firm. It has a long history of buying businesses, leveraging their cash flow, re-investing in growth and eventually selling them for a premium. A notable example of this is Coles Group, which it bought in 2007 and spun out in 2018. However, by far (over 50%) of the company’s operating profit comes from Bunnings, the #1 hardware and home improvement business in Australia. Wesfarmers began buying parcels in Bunnings in 1987, eventually acquiring the final 52% in 1994 for $594 million.
STO & WES share price valuation
One way to have a ‘quick read’ of where the STO share price is could be to study something like dividend yield over time. This can give us a sense of the stability of the company and whether they can consistently pay out a percentage of profits.
Remember, the dividend yield is basically the ‘cash flow’ to a shareholder, but it can fluctuate year-to-year or between payments. Currently, Santos Ltd shares have a dividend yield of around 5.63%, compared to its 5-year average of 4.64%. In other words, STO shares are trading higher than their historical average dividend yield. Be careful how you interpret this information though – it could mean that dividends are growing, or it could mean the share price is falling, or both. In the case of STO, we can see that last year’s dividend was less than the 3-year average, so the dividend has been falling.
WES is offering a historical dividend yield of around 2.68%, which compares to its 5-year average of 3.36%. This is just one of many ways you could put a value on WES shares. The Rask websites offer free online investing courses, created by analysts explaining valuation methods like Discounted Cash Flow (DCF) and Dividend Discount Models (DDM). They even include free valuation spreadsheets which can help you learn how to value a company like STO or WES.
