McKesson Co. (MCK) to Issue Quarterly Dividend of $0.71 on April 1st

McKesson Co. (NYSE:MCK) declared a quarterly dividend on Thursday, January 30th,RTT News reports. Investors of record on Monday, March 3rd will be paid a dividend of 0.71 per share on Tuesday, April 1st. This represents a $2.84 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.48%. The ex-dividend date is Monday, March 3rd.

McKesson has increased its dividend payment by an average of 14.3% annually over the last three years and has increased its dividend every year for the last 17 years. McKesson has a dividend payout ratio of 6.9% meaning its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Equities analysts expect McKesson to earn $36.65 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $2.84 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 7.7%.

McKesson Stock Performance

Shares of MCK stock opened at $594.85 on Friday. McKesson has a fifty-two week low of $464.42 and a fifty-two week high of $637.51. The firm has a market capitalization of $75.51 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 30.81, a PEG ratio of 1.30 and a beta of 0.52. The stock’s 50-day simple moving average is $591.35 and its 200-day simple moving average is $562.12.

McKesson (NYSE:MCK) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, November 6th. The company reported $7.07 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $6.88 by $0.19. The business had revenue of $93.65 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $89.33 billion. McKesson had a net margin of 0.77% and a negative return on equity of 207.50%. McKesson’s revenue for the quarter was up 21.3% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business posted $6.23 EPS. As a group, equities analysts forecast that McKesson will post 32.72 earnings per share for the current year.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of research firms have recently commented on MCK. Robert W. Baird upgraded McKesson from a “neutral” rating to an “outperform” rating and raised their target price for the company from $531.00 to $688.00 in a research report on Thursday, November 7th. Morgan Stanley raised their price objective on McKesson from $612.00 to $642.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Tuesday, December 17th. Baird R W upgraded McKesson from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Thursday, November 7th. Mizuho assumed coverage on shares of McKesson in a research note on Wednesday, December 4th. They set a “neutral” rating and a $630.00 target price on the stock. Finally, Citigroup dropped their price target on shares of McKesson from $713.00 to $677.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research note on Friday, January 10th. Two analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, fourteen have assigned a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $646.14.

Insider Activity at McKesson

In other McKesson news, EVP Leann B. Smith sold 579 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, December 9th. The stock was sold at an average price of $602.81, for a total transaction of $349,026.99. Following the completion of the sale, the executive vice president now directly owns 1,443 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $869,854.83. This represents a 28.64 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. Insiders own 0.11% of the company’s stock.

McKesson Company Profile

McKesson Corporation provides healthcare services in the United States and internationally. It operates through four segments: U.S. Pharmaceutical, Prescription Technology Solutions (RxTS), Medical-Surgical Solutions, and International. The U.S. Pharmaceutical segment distributes branded, generic, specialty, biosimilar and over-the-counter pharmaceutical drugs, and other healthcare-related products.