There are some ASX dividend shares that Aussies can pick that continue to grow dividend income for investors.
A business may not necessarily be worth thinking about just because a company pays a dividend.
But these two ideas have continued to pay growing dividends over the last few dividends, including through the COVID-19 pandemic:
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Brickworks Limited (ASX: BKW)
Brickworks is a fairly diversified business. It has a large building products business that produces and sells a number of things like bricks, paving, masonry, stone, roofing, specialised building systems, precast and cement.
In the US it also has a large and growing network of brick manufacturing and distribution after acquisitions.
However, Brickworks is quite clear that it's two other asset groups that fund the dividend. The Brickworks dividend has been maintained or increased every year since 1976. That means 45 years since the ordinary dividend was last decreased. In FY21, Brickworks increased its full year dividend by 2 cents per share to 61 cents per share.
The ASX dividend share also has a joint venture industrial property trust with Goodman Group (ASX: GMG). Brickworks develops properties on excess land. It is seeing "unprecedented" demand for its industries property facilities thanks to the rapid growth in online shopping and the increasing importance of well-located distribution hubs and sophisticated supply chain solutions.
To take advantage of this, it's also going through a period of unprecedented development. Management say that there is significant land for further development across the different industrial estates. It has a large amount of pre-commitments already secured. The completion of these facilities over the next two years will result in gross rent within the trust increasing by around $51 million and the valued of leased assets rising by $1.2 billion.
Brickworks also owns a substantial amount of Washington H. Soul Pattinson and Co. Ltd (ASX: SOL) shares. Soul Patts is an investment conglomerate that is more than a century old. It's invested across a number of sectors such as telecommunications, building products, resources, resources and agriculture, with investments like TPG Telecom Ltd (ASX: TPG), Brickworks itself and New Hope Corporation Limited (ASX: NHC).
At the current Brickworks share price, it currently has a grossed-up dividend yield of 3.6%.
Sonic Healthcare Ltd (ASX: SHL)
Sonic Healthcare is a large global pathology business in the healthcare sector.
It has operations across a number of countries including the USA, Germany, Australia, the UK, Ireland, Switzerland, Belgium and New Zealand.
There are three countries that make up a large majority of the revenue – the USA, Germany and Australia.
The ASX dividend share is doing a high level of COVID tests, which is adding significant levels of earnings. In FY21, the USA saw 34% organic growth with base revenue growth of 5%. Sonic pointed to increasing opportunities for commercial COVID testing here, such as travel testing.
In Germany, there was 50% organic revenue growth in FY21, with base business with of 5%. It's the largest provider of COVID testing in Germany, with 30 laboratories.
Australian pathology saw organic revenue growth of 28%, with base business growth of 9%. It's also the largest non-government provider of COVID vaccinations in Australia.
Sonic says that it has a progressive dividend policy and has increased its dividend for the last several years in a row.
In FY21 it paid a dividend of $0.91 per share, which was an increased of 7.1% compared to FY20. At the current Sonic share price, it has a partially franked dividend yield of 2.3%.
