Cogent Communications Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:CCOI) Raises Dividend to $1.01 Per Share

Cogent Communications Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:CCOI) declared a quarterly dividend on Wednesday, February 26th, RTT News reports. Stockholders of record on Thursday, March 13th will be paid a dividend of 1.005 per share by the technology company on Friday, March 28th. This represents a $4.02 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 5.77%. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, March 13th. This is a 1.0% increase from Cogent Communications’s previous quarterly dividend of $1.00.

Cogent Communications has raised its dividend by an average of 7.3% per year over the last three years and has increased its dividend annually for the last 14 consecutive years. Cogent Communications has a payout ratio of -191.4% meaning the company cannot currently cover its dividend with earnings alone and is relying on its balance sheet to cover its dividend payments. Analysts expect Cogent Communications to earn ($2.63) per share next year, which means the company may not be able to cover its $4.02 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of -152.9%.

Cogent Communications Stock Performance

NASDAQ CCOI opened at $69.63 on Tuesday. The stock has a fifty day simple moving average of $76.04 and a 200 day simple moving average of $76.99. Cogent Communications has a twelve month low of $50.80 and a twelve month high of $86.76. The company has a market capitalization of $3.43 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 89.27 and a beta of 0.45. The company has a quick ratio of 2.03, a current ratio of 2.03 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 5.87.

Cogent Communications (NASDAQ:CCOI) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, February 27th. The technology company reported ($0.91) earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of ($1.22) by $0.31. Cogent Communications had a net margin of 3.73% and a negative return on equity of 36.31%. The firm had revenue of $252.29 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $258.49 million. Sell-side analysts expect that Cogent Communications will post -4.55 EPS for the current year.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, CFO Thaddeus Gerard Weed sold 4,900 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, March 3rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $72.06, for a total transaction of $353,094.00. Following the transaction, the chief financial officer now owns 103,000 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $7,422,180. This represents a 4.54 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this link. Also, VP Henry W. Kilmer sold 2,400 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Friday, March 7th. The shares were sold at an average price of $72.57, for a total transaction of $174,168.00. Following the sale, the vice president now directly owns 41,000 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $2,975,370. This represents a 5.53 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 15,525 shares of company stock worth $1,137,498 over the last three months. 11.40% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of research firms have recently commented on CCOI. UBS Group started coverage on Cogent Communications in a report on Thursday, November 14th. They issued a “buy” rating and a $102.00 price target for the company. StockNews.com upgraded shares of Cogent Communications to a “sell” rating in a research report on Monday, March 3rd. Two analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, two have issued a hold rating, four have assigned a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the company has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $80.25.

Cogent Communications Company Profile

Cogent Communications Holdings, Inc, through its subsidiaries, provides high-speed Internet access, private network, and data center colocation space services in North America, Europe, Oceania, South America, and Africa. The company offers on-net Internet access and private network services to law firms, financial services firms, and advertising and marketing firms, as well as heath care providers, educational institutions and other professional services businesses, other Internet service providers, telephone companies, cable television companies, web hosting companies, media service providers, mobile phone operators, content delivery network companies, and commercial content and application service providers.