It's probably fair to say that most investors don't associate CSL Limited (ASX: CSL) shares with dividend income. After all, this is an ASX dividend share with a yield that rarely exceeds 1%.
But CSL actually has a strong and rather impressive history as an ASX dividend share. It paid out its maiden dividend back in 2013, forking out US$1.02 per share over the year.
Since then, CSL has been ratcheting up its annual dividend payments every single year. That includes the COVID-affected 2020.
That's with the exception of 2022, which has seen CSL pay out the same US$1.22 per share that it did over 2021.
Even so, this 8-year streak of annual pay rises is about as good a start as a dividend share can get.
But this leads us to our question of the day: how much dividend income will $20,000 worth of CSL shares buy for an ASX investor right now?
What kind of dividend income can one expect from CSL shares?
Well, at the current share price of $293.26 that CSL is asking today (at the time of writing), $20,000 would buy us 68 CSL shares, with some change left over.
So in 2022, CSL has paid out an interim dividend worth US$1.04 per share, and a final dividend worth US$1.18 per share. That was worth $1.4223 and $1.7583 in our local currency respectively. The final dividend came partially franked at 10%, while the interim dividend was unfranked.
So our 68 CSL shares would have yielded us a total of $96.76 when the interim dividend was paid out, and $119.56 for the final dividend. That's a total of $216.32 for the year. So our $20,000 worth of CSL shares would result in a dividend income worth $216.32, or 1.08% of our cost base.
No doubt investors will appreciate this income in what has been a difficult period for CSL. The CSL share price remains down by 0.8% over 2022 thus far, and down 6% over the past 12 months. The company is still trading below its pre-COVID highs of almost $340 a share.
