The Most Successful Dividend Investors of all time

The Most Successful Dividend Investors of all time

Dividend investing is as sexy as watching paint dry on the wall. Defining an entry criteria that selects quality dividend stocks with rising dividends over time and then patiently reinvesting these dividends while sitting on your hands is not exciting. While active traders have a plethora of hedge fund managers on the covers of Forbes magazine there are not many well-publicized successful dividend investors. Even value investing has its own superstars – Ben Graham and Warren Buffett.

I did some research and uncovered several successful dividend investors, whose stories provide reassurance that the traits of successful dividend investing I outlined in a previous post are indeed accurate.

The first investor is Anne Scheiber, who turned a $5,000 investment in 1944 into $22 million by the time of her death at the age of 101 in 1995. Anne Scheiber worked as an IRS auditor for 23 years, never earning more than $3150/year. The one important lesson she learned auditing tax returns was that the surest way to become rich in America is by accumulating stocks. She accumulated stocks in brand name companies she understood andthen reinvested dividends for decades. She never sold, in order to avoid paying taxes and commissions. She also never sold even during the 1972-1974 bear market as well as the 1987 market crash because she had high conviction in her stocks picks. She also held a diversified portfolio of almost 100 individual securities in brand names such as Coca-Cola (KO), PepsiCo (PEP), Bristol-Myers (BMY), Schering Plough (acquired by Pfizer in 2009). She read annual reports with the same inquisitive mind she audited tax returns during her tenure at the IRS and also attended annual shareholders meetings. Anne Scheiber did her own research on stocks, and was focusing her attention on strong franchises which have the opportunity to increase earnings and pay higher dividends over time.

In her later years she reinvested her dividends into tax free municipal bonds, which is why her portfolio had a 30% allocation to fixed income at the time of her death. At the time of her death, her portfolio was throwing off $750,000 in dividend and interest income annually. She donated her whole fortune to Yeshiva University, even though she never attended it herself.

The second investor is Grace Groner, who turned a small $180 investment in 1935 into $7 million by the time of her death in 2010. Ms Groner, who worked as a secretary at Abbott Laboratories for 43 years invested $180 in 3 shares of Abbott Laboratories (ABT) in 1935. She then simply reinvested the dividends for the next 75 years. She never sold, but just held on to her shares.

She was frugal, having grown up in the depression era, and was the classical millionaire next door type of person who was not interested in keeping up with the Joneses. Grace Groner left her entire fortune to her Alma Mater. Her $7 million donation is generating approximately $250,000 in annual dividend income. 

The reason why dividend investors are not highly publicized is because dividend investing is not sexy enough to be featured in the financial mainstream media. In addition to that, it is not profitable for Wall Street to sell you into the idea that ordinary investors can invest on their own. Compare this to mutual funds, annuities and other products which generate billions in commissions for Wall Street, despite the fact that they might not be in the best interest of small investors.

The third dividend investor is Warren Buffett, the Oracle of Omaha himself. In a previous article I have outlined the reasoning behind my belief that Buffett is a closet dividend investor. He explicitly noted in his 2009 letter that "the best businesses by far for owners continue to be those that have high returns on capital and that require little incremental investment to grow". His investment in See's Candy is the best example of that.

Some of Buffett's best companies/stock that he has owned such as Geico, Coca Cola , See's Candy are exactly the types of investments mentioned above. He has mentioned that at Berkshire he tries to stick with businesses whose profit picture for decades to come seems reasonably predictable. Per Buffett the best businesses by far for owners continue to be those that have high returns on capital and that require little incremental investment to grow. In addition, his 2011 letter discussed his dividend income from all of Berkshire Hathaway investments, including his prediction that Coca Cola dividends will keep on increasing, based on the pattern of historical dividend increases.

In this article I outlined three dividend investors, who managed to turn small investments into cash machines that generated large amounts of dividends. They were able to accomplish this through identifying quality dividend growth companies at attractive valuations, patiently reinvesting distributions and in two out of three cases maintaining a diversified portfolio of stocks. These are the lessons that all investors could profit from.

Relevant Articles:

- Diversified Dividend Portfolios – Don’t forget about quality
- Dividend Reinvestment is important
- Warren Buffett – A Closet Dividend Investor
- Build your own Berkshire with dividend paying stocks

http://www.dividendgrowthinvestor.com/2012/06/most-successful-dividend-investors-of.html

How Anne Scheiber Amassed $22 Million From Her Apartment

How Anne Scheiber Amassed $22 Million From Her Apartment

By Joshua Kennon
Investing for Beginners


In the mid 1940’s, Anne Scheiber retired from the IRS where she worked as an auditor. Using a $5,000 lump sum she had saved, and a pension of roughly $3,150, over the next 50+ years, she built a fortune from her tiny New York apartment that exceeded $22,000,000 upon her death in 1995 when she left the funds to Yeshiva University for a scholarship designed to help support deserving women. Here are some of the lessons we can learn from this ordinary woman that achieved extraordinary wealth.


1. Do your own research

Sheiber was burnt by brokers during the 1930’s so she resolved to never rely on anyone for her own financial future. Using her experience with the Internal Revenue Service, she analyzed stocks, bonds, and other assets. The result: She owned only companies with which she was comfortable. When markets collapse, one of the best ways to stay the course and maintain your investment program is to know why you own a stock, how much you think it is worth, and if the market is undervaluing it in your opinion.


2. Buy shares of excellent companies

When you’re really in this for the long-haul, you want to own excellent businesses that have durable competitive advantages, generate lots of cash, high returns on capital, have owner-oriented management, and strong balance sheets. Think about everything that has changed in the past one hundred years! We went from horse and buggies to cars to space travel, the Internet, nuclear knowledge, and a whole lot more. Yet, people still drink Coca-Cola. They still shave with Gillette razors. They still chew Wrigley gum. They still buy Johnson & Johnson products.


3. Reinvest your dividends

One of the biggest flaws with both professional and amateur investors is that they focus on changes in market capitalization or share price only. With most mature, stable companies, a substantial part of the profits are returned to shareholders in the form of cash dividends . That means you cannot measure the ultimate wealth created for investors by looking at increases in the stock price.

Famed finance professor Jeremy Siegel called reinvested dividends the “bear market protector” and “return accelerator” as they allow you to buy more shares of the company when markets crash. Over time, this drastically increases the equity you own in the company and the dividends you receive as those shares pay dividends; it’s a virtuous cycle. In most cases, the fees or costs for reinvesting dividends are either free or a nominal few dollars. This means that more of your return goes to compounding and less to frictional expenses.


4. Don’t be afraid of asset allocation

According to some sources, Anne Scheiber died with 60% of her money invested in stocks, 30% in bonds, and 10% in cash. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the concept of asset allocation , the basic idea is that it is wise for non-professional investors to keep their money divided between different types of securities such as stocks, bonds, mutual funds, international, cash, and real estate. The premise is that changes in one market won’t ripple through your entire net worth.



5. Add to your investments regularly

Regular saving and investing is important because it allows you to pick up additional stocks that fit your criteria. In addition to the first investment Scheiber made, she regularly contributed to her portfolio from the small pension she received.



6. Let your money compound uninterrupted for a very long time

Probably the biggest reason Anne Scheiber was able to amass such as substantial fortune was that she allowed the money to compound for of half a century. No, that doesn’t mean you have to live the life of a monk or deny yourself the things you want. What it means is that you learn to let your money work for you instead of constantly striving to scrape by, barely meeting expenses and maintaining your standard of living.

To learn about the power of compounding, read Pay for Retirement with a Cup of Coffee and an Egg McMuffin. With only small amounts, time can turn even the smallest sums into princely treasures.




http://beginnersinvest.about.com/od/investorsmoneymanagers/a/Anne_Scheiber.htm

SECRET MILLIONAIRE: Petrol station attendant leaves behind millions

05 February 2015 16:03

Perhaps the only clue that Ronald Read, a Vermont gas station attendant and janitor who died last year at age 92, had been quietly amassing an US$8 million (S$10 million) fortune was his habit of reading the Wall Street Journal, his friends and family say.

It was not until last week that the residents of Brattleboro would discover Read's little secret. That's when the local library and hospital received the bulk of his estate, built up over the years with savvy stock picks.

"Investing and cutting wood, he was good at both of them," his lawyer Laurie Rowell said on Wednesday, noting that he read the Journal every day.

Most of those who knew Read, described as a frugal and extremely private person, were aware that he could handle an axe. But next to no one knew how well he was handling his financial portfolio.

Read, the first person in his family to graduate from high school, dressed in worn flannel shirts and spent his free time scavenging for fallen branches for his home wood stove. He drove a second-hand Toyota Yaris.

"You'd never know the man was a millionaire," Rowell said. "The last time he came here, he parked far away in a spot where there were no meters so he could save the coins."

Read graduated from Brattleboro High School in 1940 and during World War II served in North Africa, Italy and the Pacific theatre. Returning home, he worked at Haviland's service station and then as a janitor at a JCPenney store, marrying a woman with two children.

Before his death on June 2, 2014, Read's only indulgence was eating breakfast at the local coffee shop, where he once tried to pay his bill only to find that someone had already covered it under the assumption he did not have the means, Rowell said.

Last week, Brooks Memorial Library and Brattleboro Memorial Hospital each received their largest bequests ever. Read left US$1.2 million to the library, founded in 1886, and US$4.8 million to the hospital, founded in 1904.

"It was a thunderbolt from the sky," said the library's executive director, Jerry Carbone. While a surprise, he said the gift made sense once he learned more about the quiet, shy library patron appropriately named Read.

"Being a self-made man with his investments, he recognised the transformative nature of a library, what it can do for people," Carbone said.

Read's stepchildren survive him but were not immediately available for comment. - Asiaone

Full article: http://www.malaysia-chronicle.com/index.php?option=com_k2&view=item&id=455171:secret-millionaire-petrol-station-attendant-leaves-behind-millions&Itemid=4#ixzz3QsFZjRIf

The Most Successful Dividend Investors of all time

Dividend investing is as sexy as watching paint dry on the wall. Defining an entry criteria that selects quality dividend stocks with rising dividends over time and then patiently reinvesting these dividends while sitting on your hands is not exciting. While active traders have a plethora of hedge fund managers on the covers of Forbes magazine there are not many well-publicized successful dividend investors. Even value investing has its own superstars – Ben Graham and Warren Buffett.

I did some research and uncovered several successful dividend investors, whose stories provide reassurance that the traits of successful dividend investing I outlined in a previous post are indeed accurate.

The first investor is Anne Scheiber, who turned a $5,000 investment in 1944 into $22 million by the time of her death at the age of 101 in 1995. Anne Scheiber worked as an IRS auditor for 23 years, never earning more than $3150/year. The one important lesson she learned auditing tax returns was that the surest way to become rich in America is by accumulating stocks. She accumulated stocks in brand name companies she understood and then reinvested dividends for decades. She never sold, in order to avoid paying taxes and commissions. She also never sold even during the 1972-1974 bear market as well as the 1987 market crash because she had high conviction in her stocks picks. She also held a diversified portfolio of almost 100 individual securities in brand names such as Coca-Cola (KO), PepsiCo (PEP), Bristol-Myers (BMY), Schering Plough (acquired by Pfizer in 2009). She read annual reports with the same inquisitive mind she audited tax returns during her tenure at the IRS and also attended annual shareholders meetings. Anne Scheiber did her own research on stocks, and was focusing her attention on strong franchises which have the opportunity to increase earnings and pay higher dividends over time.

In her later years she reinvested her dividends into tax free municipal bonds, which is why her portfolio had a 30% allocation to fixed income at the time of her death. At the time of her death, her portfolio was throwing off $750,000 in dividend and interest income annually. She donated her whole fortune to Yeshiva University, even though she never attended it herself.

The second investor is Grace Groner, who turned a small $180 investment in 1935 into $7 million by the time of her death in 2010. Ms Groner, who worked as a secretary at Abbott Laboratories for 43 years invested $180 in 3 shares of Abbott Laboratories (ABT) in 1935. She then simply reinvested the dividends for the next 75 years. She never sold, but just held on to her shares.

She was frugal, having grown up in the depression era, and was the classical millionaire next door type of person who was not interested in keeping up with the Joneses. Grace Groner left her entire fortune to her Alma Mater. Her $7 million donation is generating approximately $250,000 in annual dividend income.

The reason why dividend investors are not highly publicized is because dividend investing is not sexy enough to be featured in the financial mainstream media. In addition to that, it is not profitable for Wall Street to sell you into the idea that ordinary investors can invest on their own. Compare this to mutual funds, annuities and other products which generate billions in commissions for Wall Street, despite the fact that they might not be in the best interest of small investors.

The third dividend investor is Warren Buffett, the Oracle of Omaha himself. In a previous article I have outlined the reasoning behind my belief that Buffett is a closet dividend investor. He explicitly noted in his 2009 letter that "the best businesses by far for owners continue to be those that have high returns on capital and that require little incremental investment to grow". His investment in See's Candy is the best example of that.

Some of Buffett's best companies/stock that he has owned such as Geico, Coca Cola , See's Candy are exactly the types of investments mentioned above. He has mentioned that at Berkshire he tries to stick with businesses whose profit picture for decades to come seems reasonably predictable. Per Buffett the best businesses by far for owners continue to be those that have high returns on capital and that require little incremental investment to grow. In addition, his 2011 letter discussed his dividend income from all of Berkshire Hathaway investments, including his prediction that Coca Cola dividends will keep on increasing, based on the pattern of historical dividend increases.

In this article I outlined three dividend investors, who managed to turn small investments into cash machines that generated large amounts of dividends. They were able to accomplish this through identifying quality dividend growth companies at attractive valuations, patiently reinvesting distributions and in two out of three cases maintaining a diversified portfolio of stocks. These are the lessons that all investors could profit from.

http://www.dividendgrowthinvestor.com/2012/06/most-successful-dividend-investors-of.html

Lessons from a Secret Multi-Millionaire

Lessons from a Secret Multi-Millionaire
How Anne Scheiber Amassed $22 Million From Her Apartment



By Joshua Kennon


In the mid 1940’s, Anne Scheiber retired from the IRS where she worked as an auditor. Using a $5,000 lump sum she had saved, and a pension of roughly $3,150, over the next 50+ years, she built a fortune from her tiny New York apartment that exceeded $22,000,000 upon her death in 1995 when she left the funds to Yeshiva University for a scholarship designed to help support deserving women. Here are some of the lessons we can learn from this ordinary woman that achieved extraordinary wealth.

1. Do your own research

Sheiber was burnt by brokers during the 1930’s so she resolved to never rely on anyone for her own financial future. Using her experience with the Internal Revenue Service, she analyzed stocks, bonds, and other assets. The result: She owned only companies with which she was comfortable. When markets collapse, one of the best ways to stay the course and maintain your investment program is to know why you own a stock, how much you think it is worth, and if the market is undervaluing it in your opinion.

2. Buy shares of excellent companies

When you’re really in this for the long-haul, you want to own excellent businesses that have durable competitive advantages, generate lots of cash, high returns on capital, have owner-oriented management, and strong balance sheets. Think about everything that has changed in the past one hundred years! We went from horse and buggies to cars to space travel, the Internet, nuclear knowledge, and a whole lot more. Yet, people still drink Coca-Cola. They still shave with Gillette razors. They still chew Wrigley gum. They still buy Johnson & Johnson products.

3. Reinvest your dividends

One of the biggest flaws with both professional and amateur investors is that they focus on changes in market capitalization or share price only. With most mature, stable companies, a substantial part of the profits are returned to shareholders in the form of cash dividends. That means you cannot measure the ultimate wealth created for investors by looking at increases in the stock price.

Famed finance professor Jeremy Siegel called reinvested dividends the “bear market protector” and “return accelerator” as they allow you to buy more shares of the company when markets crash. Over time, this drastically increases the equity you own in the company and the dividends you receive as those shares pay dividends; it’s a virtuous cycle. In most cases, the fees or costs for reinvesting dividends are either free or a nominal few dollars. This means that more of your return goes to compounding and less to frictional expenses.

4. Don’t be afraid of asset allocation

According to some sources, Anne Scheiber died with 60% of her money invested in stocks, 30% in bonds, and 10% in cash. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the concept of asset allocation, the basic idea is that it is wise for non-professional investors to keep their money divided between different types of securities such as stocks, bonds, mutual funds, international, cash, and real estate. The premise is that changes in one market won’t ripple through your entire net worth.

5. Add to your investments regularly

Regular saving and investing is important because it allows you to pick up additional stocks that fit your criteria. In addition to the first investment Scheiber made, she regularly contributed to her portfolio from the small pension she received.

6. Let your money compound uninterrupted for a very long time

Probably the biggest reason Anne Scheiber was able to amass such as substantial fortune was that she allowed the money to compound for of half a century. No, that doesn’t mean you have to live the life of a monk or deny yourself the things you want. What it means is that you learn to let your money work for you instead of constantly striving to scrape by, barely meeting expenses and maintaining your standard of living.



To learn about the power of compounding, read Pay for Retirement with a Cup of Coffee and an Egg McMuffin. With only small amounts, time can turn even the smallest sums into princely treasures.

http://beginnersinvest.about.com/od/investorsmoneymanagers/a/Anne_Scheiber.htm

http://www.philanthropyroundtable.org/almanac/great_men_and_women/hall_of_fame/oseola_mccarty

The Impact of Reinvesting Dividends

The chart shows the value over time of a $100 investment made in the S&P 500 in 1925 with dividends reinvested vs. dividends not reinvested.  It appears in the book pretty much as shown below.

It makes the difference between reinvesting dividends (the top line) and not reinvesting dividends (the bottom line) look pretty impresive, but it also makes it look like there isn't much difference until 50 years or so after the initial investment.  That's because the vertical scale is linear.

A more typical way to show compound growth such as this would be to use a semi-log chart, as shown next.  (A somewhat less serious problem with the chart above is that the horizontal scale distorts the amount of time at the beginning and end of the data.)

1. All that's really going on here is the difference between about 10.5% compound annualized growth (dividends reinvested, on the top line) and 5.7% compound annualized growth (dividends not reinvested, on the bottom line). 
 
2. The semi-log chart (with time properly represented on the horizontal scale) makes it clear that there is constant percentage growth in the value of the investment regardless of whether or not dividends are reinvested.  That's because the lines are straight (remember that straight lines on the semi-log chart indicate consistent compound growth).         
3. It also shows more clearly that reinvestment of dividends 

• affects the investment value right from the beginning and
  •  
• provides a consistently increasing benefit as more and more time passes.

Have you wondered how people became wealthy?

Author: Almost Anyone Can Be A Millionaire

New Britain Native Writes Formula Book

February 28, 2000|By BILL LEUKHARDT; Courant Staff Writer

NEW BRITAIN — Growing up here in a middle-class family, Ed Dzwonkowski sometimes wondered how people became wealthy.

He had a paper route after school, but that wasn't a road to riches.

It has been decades since those news carrier days, and Dzwonkowski, 42, and a certified financial planner living in California, now thinks he has figured out how almost anyone can become a millionaire.

The key is working hard and consistently investing the weekly paycheck in assets that will appreciate in value.

``It does not happen overnight. You have to be consistent. In the old days, pensions and Social Security might have provided enough. Now, people usually don't stay in one company for life, and they may want to retire early or be forced to retire early because of illness or other reasons,'' Dzwonkowski said. ``So it's prudent to plan for yourself.''

He has put it all into a book titled ``How You Can Become a Millionaire,'' which he had printed himself and is selling through distributors across the nation. It costs $19.95 and is published by Great Spirit Publishing Co. in Huntington Beach, Calif. Dzwonkowski is Great Spirit Publishing.

According to Dzwonkowski, if a person puts $264 a month, every month for 35 years, into investments that yield 10 percent interest, that person will have $1 million at the end of 35 years.

``And if you fall short of your goal, you'll still have some sizable amount that you wouldn't have had if you hadn't begun investing,'' Dzwonkowski said.

Asked if he is a millionaire yet, Dzwonkowski gave what he called his standard answer: ``Not yet, but I'm closer today than I was yesterday. I do follow my own advice.''

The book is in its second printing. The first 1,000 copies were sold to people as far away as New Zealand. Those requests came via the Internet, he said.

Dzwonkowski's father, Edward ``Butch'' Dzwonkowski, is New Britain's registrar of voters. He says he's proud of his son.

``He gets on my case about investing. But I tell him I'm too old,'' the elder Dzwonkowski said.

His son has two words: Anne Scheiber.

Scheiber, who died in 1995 at the age of 101, was a low-paid clerk with the Internal Revenue Service who decided at age 50 to start investing, using $5,000 she had squirreled away.

She invested every month, and by the time she died, her investments had grown to $20 million, generating income of $62,000 a month. She left her money to Yeshiva University in New York.

``Anne Scheiber did what I advocate. Consistent savings and investment over time. Look what it did for her,'' the author said.

http://articles.courant.com/2000-02-28/news/0002280183_1_investing-anne-scheiber-millionaire

Sharemarket crash survival guide

By Bruce Jackson - Tuesday, November 22nd, 2011

• Email

Shares are being trashed, again. The temptation is to sell everything and run for the hills. Instead, take a chill pill and consider The Motley Fool’s patented sharemarket survival guide.

Down down, shares are going down.

After weeks of worrying about European sovereign debt woes, focus has again turned back to the U.S. and its own debt crisis.

In the U.S, the S&P 500 has posted its worst losing streak in 2 months.

Over the last 3 weeks, our own S&P/ASX 200 index has fallen almost 7 per cent in the last 3 weeks. Some shares have fared even worse…

Company	% Share Price Fall Oct 28 2011 to Nov 21 2011
Australia & New Zealand Banking Group(ASX:ANZ)	(10.6)
National Australia Bank (ASX:NAB)	(10.7)
Iluka Resources Ltd. (ASX:ILU)	(11.3)
Incitec Pivot Limited (ASX:IPL)	(12.5)
Lend Lease Group (ASX:LLC)	(11.2)
Mesoblast Limited (ASX:MSB)	(14.1)
David Jones Ltd. (ASX:DJS)	(13.1)
BlueScope Steel (ASX:BSL)	(29.5)
White Energy (ASX:WEC)	(72.4)

With the exception of White Energy, these are all big companies. It has been a tough time for investors.

So what are the keys to surviving market downturns? Here are some suggestions:

1. Don’t get absorbed in despair and panic. Ignore the violent emotional swings, and instead simply maintain a degree of detachment with regard to the whole business.

2. Be a regular saver and investor. That way, a market downturn becomes nothing more than a buying opportunity.

3. Reflect that Anne Scheiber, the U.S. lawyer who invested $5,000 in 1944 and died in the mid-1990s worth over $20 million, never sold a share and invested only in common, easily understandable companies. To her, we must presume, market fluctuations were an irrelevancy.

4. Finally, stop buying the newspapers, don’t watch the TV and go away on holiday. In short, switch off the market. Life’s too short for all that hullabaloo.

(As an aside, if you are worried about the market crash, you might want to first check out our new free report, Read This Before The Market Crashes. It could save you hours of heartache, and thousands of dollars. Click here to request your report now, whilst it’s still free and available.)

As our Investment Analyst Dean Morel said just a couple of weeks ago…

“When bearish volatility, caused by emotions and a lack of reason, leads humans to herd, sharemarkets become irrational and oversold. That irrationality allows investors who are able to control their emotions and act in a calm, balanced manner, to take advantage of the many opportunities the market throws up.

There is no need to make big decisions. You don’t  need to be fully invested in, or totally out of the market. Gradually building positions in the best companies while maintaining a cash cushion will make investing easier and less stressful.”

Stock market falls are like the seasons of the year. They are a natural part of the investment landscape, they are normal and can even be very healthy.

This latest crisis, like all crises before, will pass. And those that survive will prosper.

http://www.fool.com.au/2011/11/investing/sharemarket-crash-survival-guide/