Crown Castle Inc. (NYSE:CCI) Announces $1.57 Quarterly Dividend

Crown Castle Inc. (NYSE:CCI) announced a quarterly dividend on Wednesday, November 6th,Zacks Dividends reports. Shareholders of record on Friday, December 13th will be paid a dividend of 1.565 per share by the real estate investment trust on Tuesday, December 31st. This represents a $6.26 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 6.01%. The ex-dividend date is Friday, December 13th.

Crown Castle has raised its dividend payment by an average of 8.3% annually over the last three years. Crown Castle has a payout ratio of 231.9% meaning the company cannot currently cover its dividend with earnings alone and is relying on its balance sheet to cover its dividend payments. Equities analysts expect Crown Castle to earn $6.58 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $6.26 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 95.1%.

Crown Castle Price Performance

Shares of Crown Castle stock opened at $104.21 on Friday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 4.43, a current ratio of 0.54 and a quick ratio of 0.54. Crown Castle has a fifty-two week low of $92.48 and a fifty-two week high of $120.92. The firm has a fifty day moving average price of $113.39 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $106.09. The company has a market cap of $45.29 billion, a PE ratio of 36.95 and a beta of 0.86.

Crown Castle (NYSE:CCI) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, October 16th. The real estate investment trust reported $0.70 earnings per share for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.73 by ($1.03). Crown Castle had a net margin of 18.59% and a return on equity of 20.98%. The company had revenue of $1.65 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.64 billion. During the same period last year, the company earned $1.77 earnings per share. Crown Castle’s revenue for the quarter was down .9% on a year-over-year basis. Analysts expect that Crown Castle will post 6.65 EPS for the current year.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of brokerages recently issued reports on CCI. Bank of America increased their target price on shares of Crown Castle from $110.00 to $115.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Tuesday, August 13th. Jefferies Financial Group increased their price objective on shares of Crown Castle from $123.00 to $127.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Thursday, October 17th. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft increased their price objective on shares of Crown Castle from $103.00 to $105.00 and gave the stock a “hold” rating in a report on Tuesday, July 23rd. Royal Bank of Canada increased their price objective on shares of Crown Castle from $104.00 to $109.00 and gave the stock a “sector perform” rating in a report on Monday, October 28th. Finally, UBS Group increased their price objective on shares of Crown Castle from $103.00 to $118.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a report on Thursday, October 17th. Twelve analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and three have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, Crown Castle has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $116.87.

About Crown Castle

Crown Castle owns, operates and leases more than 40,000 cell towers and approximately 90,000 route miles of fiber supporting small cells and fiber solutions across every major U.S. market. This nationwide portfolio of communications infrastructure connects cities and communities to essential data, technology and wireless service – bringing information, ideas and innovations to the people and businesses that need them.