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

Celanese Co. (NYSE:CE) declared 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 2.17%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Wednesday, October 30th.

Celanese has increased its dividend payment by an average of 4.1% per year over the last three years and has raised its dividend annually for the last 14 consecutive years. Celanese has a dividend payout ratio of 22.4% indicating that its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Equities 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 Price Performance

Shares of Celanese stock opened at $128.87 on Monday. The company has a current ratio of 1.28, a quick ratio of 0.74 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.45. The stock has a market capitalization of $14.08 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 7.09, a P/E/G ratio of 0.70 and a beta of 1.30. Celanese has a 1-year low of $110.76 and a 1-year high of $172.16. The firm’s 50-day moving average price is $130.06 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $139.51.

Celanese (NYSE:CE) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, August 1st. The basic materials company reported $2.38 earnings per share for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $2.71 by ($0.33). Celanese had a return on equity of 13.60% and a net margin of 18.24%. The firm had revenue of $2.65 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $2.76 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the company posted $2.17 earnings per share. Celanese’s quarterly revenue was down 5.2% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, equities analysts predict that Celanese will post 10.32 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several analysts have recently commented on CE shares. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft decreased their price target on shares of Celanese from $160.00 to $135.00 and set a “hold” rating on the stock in a research note on Monday, August 12th. BMO Capital Markets decreased their price target on shares of Celanese from $142.00 to $138.00 and set a “market perform” rating on the stock in a research note on Wednesday, August 7th. Barclays decreased their price target on shares of Celanese from $170.00 to $151.00 and set an “equal weight” rating on the stock in a research note on Tuesday, August 6th. Bank of America cut their price objective on shares of Celanese from $137.00 to $128.00 and set an “underperform” rating on the stock in a report on Monday, August 12th. Finally, KeyCorp lowered shares of Celanese from an “overweight” rating to a “sector weight” rating in a report on Monday, October 7th. Two analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, ten have issued a hold rating and four have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Celanese presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $152.87.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Celanese news, COO Scott A. Richardson sold 4,675 shares of Celanese stock in a transaction dated Monday, August 19th. The shares were sold at an average price of $129.51, for a total value of $605,459.25. Following the completion of the sale, the chief operating officer now owns 69,754 shares in the company, valued at $9,033,840.54. The trade was a 0.00 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. Corporate insiders own 0.33% of the company’s stock.

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.