Income is a big part of investors' returns. Stocks, mutual funds and fixed income ideas in this column are featured because they are relatively solid in their ability to pay dividends or interest. We're giving income investors a resource to start their research for investments that give better yields with lower risk.

The company offers prescription medicines to treat a range of conditions, including infections, depression, skin conditions, asthma, heart and circulatory disease, and cancer. It also markets approximately 30 vaccines to prevent life-threatening or crippling illnesses, such as hepatitis A, hepatitis B, diphtheria, tetanus, whooping cough, measles, mumps, rubella, polio, typhoid, influenza, and bacterial meningitis.

In addition, the company provides OTC medicines, including Panadol, a paracetamol-based treatment of headache and joint pain, fever, and cold symptoms; and NicoDerm, NiQuitin CQ, Nicabate, and Nicorette for the treatment of nicotine withdrawal as an aid to quit smoking. It also offers oral healthcare products such as Aquafresh, a range of toothpastes, toothbrushes, and mouthwashes for the prevention of cavities, gum disease, and bad breath; Sensodyne, a range of toothpastes and toothbrushes for the prevention of dental sensitivity; Biotene, a mouthwash and gel to treat dry mouth; and Polident, Poligrip, and Corega, a denture adhesive and cleanser to enhance comfort of fitted dentures and to clean dentures.

Additionally, the company provides nutritional healthcare products consisting of Lucozade, an energy and sports drinks for energy and hydration; Horlicks, a malted, milk-based drink and food for nutrition application; and Ribena, a blackcurrant juice-based drink. GlaxoSmithKline plc was founded in 1935 and is headquartered in Brentford, the United Kingdom.

Glaxo has a broad revenue base with 39% of sales coming from North America. Therapeutic categories, by sales, in 2010 were: central nervous system (17%) with products like Imitrex and Wellbutrin; respiratoy (27%) with Advair, Ventolin and several others; antibacterial (9%) with Augmentin; antivirals (17%) with Trizivir and 2 others; Metabolic (9%); vaccines (13%) and others (17%).

What interests Income Investors is income. GSK delivered solid income over the last 3.5 years with payouts that returned 5% or more. That kept many invstors in the stock when several of GSK's drugs were coming off patent, subject to competition from generics. Management purposely raised the dividend as investors got nervous about patent lapses. It worked. The stock followed the market down in early 2009 when the world looked as if it would stop turning, but it didn't get pounded like many others. Since then, the price has held in a rather tight range.

There's not a lot to get excited about at GSK. Analysts don't see any major new drugs that will boost top and bottom lines emerging from R&D any time soon. Expectations are for revenues to grow 4.2% in 2012 to $45.71 billion. They should be flat this year with 2010 at $43.86 billion.

Of course, the big concern is patent expiration on some of the bigger drugs, ones like Paxil, Welbutrin, Zofran and Advair. But that's only one side of the pipeline. On the other side, coming out of R&D are new drugs that will start selling in the next few quarters that will stem some of the losses. Of course, just because there is a generic replacement, it doesn't mean all patients will abandon the original drug. Furthermore, GSK has enough money to buy other companies to bolster its offerings.

That financial strength is beginning to weaken just a little. That's because there's already a lot of debt on the books. Borrowings are 62% of capital, making a total of $24.139 billion. The company still carries an A+ Financial Strength rating, even with all that debt so cash flow and earnings are strong enough to carry current debt levels and more. The dividend takes about 60% of earnings.

The dividend this year should be $2.11 for a yield of 4.90% For the last 4 years, it was $1.94, $2.17, $1.92, and $1.94. It fluctuates with earnings so expect future growth in the payout.

Essential numbers: Market Cap is $109.24 billion. Trailing P/E is 37.5 while Forward P/E is 10.76. Price to sales ratio is 2.45. Price to book is 7.46. Operating margin for the last 12 months was 32.04%. Profit margin was 6.59%. Return on equity was 19.16% and Return on assets was 12.70%. There's $10.76 billion in cash for $4.23 a share. Total debt to equity is 152%. Current ratio is 1.28. Book value is $5.75. Beta is .68. The stock is up 18.04% in the last 52 weeks. There are 2.54 billion shares Outstanding with a Float of 2.42 billion.

Income and conservatie investors should like this stock. There's plenty at GSK to make them happy. As long as expectations aren't too high, they can count on a decent dividend and slow but steady growth. Unless those generic competitors take too much market share too quickly. Then management will have to react quickly.