Income investors value reliability and consistency, as well as high dividend yields. Some stocks provide a combination of these factors, such as the Dividend Champions — stocks that have raised their payouts for at least 25 years in a row.
These companies have proven that they can manage through recessions, while continuing to pay dividends each year, and raise their dividends on an annual basis.
These 3 Dividend Champions have long histories of dividend growth, market-beating yields, and the ability to raise their dividends each year going forward.
1. Emerson Electric (EMR)
Emerson Electric (NYSE:) operates in the industrial sector as a diversified global leader in technology and engineering. Its global customer base and diverse product and service offerings afford it just over $17 billion in annual revenue.
The company has increased its dividend for 68 consecutive years.
Emerson posted second-quarter earnings on May 7th, 2025, and results were better than expected on both the top and bottom lines. Revenue was up 1.1% year-over-year to $4.43 billion, beating estimates by $50 million.
The company finalized its acquisition of AspenTech during the quarter. Underlying sales were up 2% after adjusting for currency impacts. Free cash flow was up 14% to $738 million while operating cash flow climbed to $825 million. Adjusted segment earnings pretax rose by 200 basis points to 28% of revenue, a new quarterly record. Adjusted earnings were up 6% year-over-year.
Emerson expects AspenTech to generate about $100 million in cost savings by 2028. In addition, the company is keeping the Safety and Productivity business after the strategic review.
Emerson’s competitive advantage is in its many decades of experience in building customer relationships and engineering excellence. It has a global customer base that is seeing strong economic growth and that underlying sales tailwind should power results going forward.
Emerson is undergoing a significant shift in its strategy, whereby it is selling off legacy units and focusing more on automation and recurring revenue, with the Aspen acquisition being another example of this strategy in practice.
Emerson’s payout ratio is well under half of earnings, and we believe it will continue to drift lower over time as Emerson focuses on acquisitions instead of boosting the payout by large amounts. The dividend is very safe as it is well covered by free cash flow.
2. Sherwin-Williams (SHW)
Founded in 1866 and headquartered in Cleveland, OH, Sherwin-Williams (NYSE:) is North America’s largest manufacturer of paints and coatings.
It distributes its products through wholesalers as well as retail stores (including a chain of more than 5,000 company-operated stores and facilities) to 120 countries under the Sherwin-Williams name. The company also manufactures Dutch Boy, Pratt & Lambert, Minwax, Thompson’s Waterseal, Krylon, Valspar (acquired in 2017), and other brands.
On April 29th, 2025, Sherwin-Williams released financial results for the first quarter of fiscal 2025. Sales dipped -1% over the prior year’s quarter, mostly due to weak construction completion activity. However, gross margin expanded from 47.2% to 48.2% and adjusted earnings-per-share grew 4%, from $2.17 to $2.25.
Sherwin-Williams reiterated its positive guidance for 2025. It expects sales to be up a low-single-digit percentage and earnings per share of $11.65-$12.05. SHW has beaten the analysts’ estimates in 9 of the last 11 quarters.
Sherwin-Williams has put together an exceptionally strong growth record in the past, with earnings-per-share growing at a 13.2% average compound rate over the last decade. This has been driven by solid top line growth, significant margin improvement, and a lower share count.
We believe that Sherwin-Williams can deliver 7% annualized earnings growth over a full economic cycle, roughly in line with its 5-year growth rate. Growth can come from several factors, including revenue expansion – resting on higher sales at the company’s existing stores – margin improvement, share repurchases, and general economic growth.
2. Sonoco Products (SON)
Sonoco Products (NYSE:) provides packaging, industrial products, and supply chain services to its customers. The markets that use the company’s products include those in the appliances, electronics, beverage, construction, and food industries.
The company generates over $5 billion in annual sales. Sonoco Products is now composed of 2 major segments, Consumer Packaging, and Industrial Packaging, with all other businesses listed as “All Other”.
On April 16th, 2025, Sonoco Products raised its quarterly dividend 1.9% to $0.53, extending the company’s dividend growth streak to 49 consecutive years.
On April 29th, 2025, Sonoco Products reported first quarter results for the period ending March 30th, 2025. For the quarter, revenue grew 30.5% to $1.71 billion, which was $330 million less than expected. Adjusted earnings-per-share of $1.38 compared to $1.12 in the prior year, but was $0.03 below estimates.
Revenues and earnings benefited from the addition of Eviosys. For the quarter, Consumer Packaging (NYSE:) revenues of $1.07 billion were up 83% year-over-year, mostly due to contributions from Eviosys.
Volumes improved as well while pricing and costs were favorable in the U.S. metal cans packaging business.
Over the past decade, the company has averaged a 47% dividend payout ratio, but it is projected to be much lower than that this year. Sonoco Products has a very reasonable dividend payout ratio of 35% based off our expectations for 2025. As such, Sonoco Products’ dividend appears safe.
Get the complete list of Dividend Champions Stocks here
Disclosure: No positions in any stocks mentioned