Celanese Co. (NYSE:CE) Announces Quarterly Dividend of $0.03

Celanese Co. (NYSE:CE) declared a quarterly dividend on Wednesday, February 12th, RTT News reports. Stockholders of record on Tuesday, February 25th will be given a dividend of 0.03 per share by the basic materials company on Tuesday, March 11th. This represents a $0.12 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.23%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Tuesday, February 25th.

Celanese has raised its dividend payment by an average of 1.0% per year over the last three years. Celanese has a dividend payout ratio of 1.4% meaning its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Analysts expect Celanese to earn $10.10 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $0.12 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 1.2%.

Celanese Stock Up 0.3 %

NYSE:CE opened at $52.75 on Friday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.98, a current ratio of 1.34 and a quick ratio of 0.76. The company has a 50-day moving average of $68.25 and a 200 day moving average of $96.95. Celanese has a 1-year low of $51.24 and a 1-year high of $172.16. The firm has a market cap of $5.77 billion, a PE ratio of -3.79, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.05 and a beta of 1.17.

Celanese (NYSE:CE) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, February 18th. The basic materials company reported $1.45 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.25 by $0.20. The business had revenue of $2.37 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $2.36 billion. Celanese had a positive return on equity of 12.86% and a negative net margin of 14.81%. As a group, research analysts anticipate that Celanese will post 8.79 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several research analysts have recently issued reports on the company. Citigroup upgraded Celanese to a “neutral” rating and raised their price objective for the stock from $73.00 to $76.00 in a research note on Thursday, January 23rd. StockNews.com lowered shares of Celanese from a “hold” rating to a “sell” rating in a research note on Thursday. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft decreased their target price on shares of Celanese from $85.00 to $70.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research report on Thursday. Mizuho cut their price target on Celanese from $120.00 to $86.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday, December 5th. Finally, Morgan Stanley decreased their price objective on Celanese from $100.00 to $80.00 and set an “equal weight” rating for the company in a report on Monday, January 13th. Four equities research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, nine have given a hold rating and three have given a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, Celanese currently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $80.00.

About Celanese

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.