Premier, Inc. (NASDAQ:PINC) Announces $0.21 Quarterly Dividend

Premier, Inc. (NASDAQ:PINC) announced a quarterly dividend on Thursday, October 24th,Zacks Dividends reports. Stockholders of record on Sunday, December 1st will be paid a dividend of 0.21 per share on Sunday, December 15th. This represents a $0.84 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 3.66%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, November 29th.

Premier has raised its dividend by an average of 30.3% annually over the last three years. Premier has a payout ratio of 65.1% indicating that its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Analysts expect Premier to earn $1.18 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $0.84 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 71.2%.

Premier Price Performance

Shares of PINC stock opened at $22.95 on Thursday. The stock’s fifty day simple moving average is $20.71 and its 200 day simple moving average is $19.90. The firm has a market cap of $2.21 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 16.77, a P/E/G ratio of 10.42 and a beta of 0.40. Premier has a one year low of $17.95 and a one year high of $23.56.

Premier (NASDAQ:PINC) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, November 5th. The company reported $0.34 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.25 by $0.09. The business had revenue of $248.14 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $232.85 million. Premier had a return on equity of 10.74% and a net margin of 11.41%. Premier’s quarterly revenue was down 7.8% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm earned $0.50 EPS. On average, research analysts anticipate that Premier will post 1.09 earnings per share for the current year.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several brokerages recently commented on PINC. JPMorgan Chase & Co. decreased their price target on Premier from $21.00 to $19.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a research note on Monday, September 9th. StockNews.com lowered Premier from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Tuesday, November 5th. Canaccord Genuity Group boosted their price objective on Premier from $19.00 to $21.00 and gave the stock a “hold” rating in a research note on Wednesday, November 6th. Barclays boosted their price objective on Premier from $20.00 to $24.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Wednesday, November 6th. Finally, Benchmark lowered Premier from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Monday, August 26th. Ten equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, According to MarketBeat, the company has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $21.36.

Insider Transactions at Premier

In other news, COO Leigh Anderson sold 20,000 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, October 1st. The stock was sold at an average price of $19.62, for a total transaction of $392,400.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief operating officer now owns 131,707 shares in the company, valued at $2,584,091.34. The trade was a 13.18 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available through this link. Also, CEO Michael J. Alkire sold 17,415 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, November 13th. The shares were sold at an average price of $23.16, for a total value of $403,331.40. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 520,728 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $12,060,060.48. This represents a 3.24 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 141,537 shares of company stock worth $2,915,552 over the last 90 days. 0.96% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Premier Company Profile

Premier, Inc, together with its subsidiaries, operates as a healthcare improvement company in the United States. It operates in two segments, Supply Chain Services and Performance Services. The Supply Chain Services segment offers its members with an access to a range of products and services, including medical and surgical products, pharmaceuticals, laboratory supplies, capital equipment, information technology, facilities and construction, and food and nutritional products, as well as purchased services, such as clinical engineering and workforce solutions.