Celanese Co. (NYSE:CE) Plans $0.70 Quarterly Dividend

Celanese Co. (NYSE:CE) announced a quarterly dividend on Thursday, October 17th, RTT News reports. Shareholders of record on Wednesday, October 30th will be given a dividend of 0.70 per share by the basic materials company on Wednesday, November 13th. This represents a $2.80 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 2.06%. The ex-dividend date is Wednesday, October 30th.

Celanese has increased its dividend by an average of 4.1% annually over the last three years and has raised its dividend annually for the last 14 consecutive years. Celanese has a dividend payout ratio of 22.2% indicating that its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Research analysts expect Celanese to earn $12.69 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $2.80 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 22.1%.

Celanese Stock Performance

Shares of NYSE:CE opened at $135.97 on Friday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.45, a quick ratio of 0.74 and a current ratio of 1.28. The firm has a market cap of $14.85 billion, a PE ratio of 7.48, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 0.70 and a beta of 1.30. The firm’s 50 day simple moving average is $129.75 and its 200-day simple moving average is $141.08. Celanese has a one year low of $110.76 and a one year high of $172.16.

Celanese (NYSE:CE) last posted its earnings results on Thursday, August 1st. The basic materials company reported $2.38 EPS for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.71 by ($0.33). The business had revenue of $2.65 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $2.76 billion. Celanese had a net margin of 18.24% and a return on equity of 13.60%. The company’s revenue for the quarter was down 5.2% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period last year, the business posted $2.17 EPS. As a group, equities analysts predict that Celanese will post 10.32 EPS for the current year.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Celanese news, COO Scott A. Richardson sold 4,675 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, August 19th. The stock was sold at an average price of $129.51, for a total transaction of $605,459.25. Following the completion of the sale, the chief operating officer now directly owns 69,754 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $9,033,840.54. This trade represents a 0.00 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. 0.33% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

CE has been the subject of a number of research analyst reports. JPMorgan Chase & Co. upgraded Celanese from an “underweight” rating to a “neutral” rating and decreased their price target for the company from $156.00 to $130.00 in a research note on Monday, August 5th. Bank of America cut their price target on shares of Celanese from $137.00 to $128.00 and set an “underperform” rating on the stock in a research note on Monday, August 12th. Royal Bank of Canada lowered their price objective on shares of Celanese from $167.00 to $163.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research note on Friday, October 11th. UBS Group cut their target price on Celanese from $193.00 to $184.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research report on Tuesday, July 9th. Finally, KeyCorp cut Celanese from an “overweight” rating to a “sector weight” rating in a research report on Monday, October 7th. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, ten have given a hold rating and four have issued a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $152.87.

Celanese Company Profile

Celanese Corporation, a chemical and specialty materials company, manufactures and sells high performance engineered polymers in the United States and internationally. It operates through Engineered Materials and Acetyl Chain. The Engineered Materials segment develops, produces, and supplies specialty polymers for automotive and medical applications, as well as for use in industrial products and consumer electronics.