Dividend history is one of the most straightforward and useful ways to determine whether a company has shareholder-friendly management.

There is remarkable consistency among companies with long histories of steadily rising dividends – meaning that a long dividend increase suggests more increases are yet to come.

That’s why the Dividend Aristocrats are one of the best places to find high-quality dividend growth stocks. To be a Dividend Aristocrat, a company must be in the S&P 500 and increase its dividend for 25 consecutive years.

The Dividend Aristocrats have meaningfully outperformed the S&P 500 over long periods of time. Dividend history matters.

Thus, when a company announces its 50th consecutive annual dividend increase, investors ought to take notice.

SJW Group (SJW) recently did just that. The company’s dividend increase last January qualified it to be a member of the Dividend Kings – an elite group of stocks with 50+ years of consecutive dividend increases.

SJW’s long streak of dividend increases indicates that it has a defensible competitive advantage and that it is a very shareholder-friendly company.

This article will analyze the investment prospects of the SJW Group in detail.

Business Overview

The SJW Group is a water utility company based in San Jose, California. SJW was founded in 1866 and has a remarkably long corporate history of 151 years. The company has a current market capitalization of $1.0 billion.

More details about SJW’s investment highlights can be seen below.

Source: SJW Group Investor Presentation, slide 3

The SJW Group acts as a holding company for its four operating subsidiaries:

Both the San Jose Water Company and SJWTX Inc. are water utilities in the traditional sense and deliver water to more than 1 million customers in aggregate. The other subsidiaries operate in unrelated (but complimentary) industries.

The SJW Land Company owns and operates commercial real estate investments. Conversely, the Texas Water Alliance is an entity dedicating to pursuing the development of a regional water supply project in central Texas.

Two of these subsidiaries – the San Jose Water Company and SJWTX – are regulated utilities, while the other two are non-regulated.