Ingredion Incorporated Declares Quarterly Dividend of $0.80 (NYSE:INGR)

Ingredion Incorporated (NYSE:INGR) declared a quarterly dividend on Tuesday, December 17th,Wall Street Journal reports. Stockholders of record on Thursday, January 2nd will be paid a dividend of 0.80 per share on Tuesday, January 21st. This represents a $3.20 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 2.25%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, January 2nd.

Ingredion has increased its dividend by an average of 5.5% per year over the last three years and has increased its dividend every year for the last 14 years. Ingredion has a dividend payout ratio of 28.8% meaning its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Equities analysts expect Ingredion to earn $11.16 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $3.20 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 28.7%.

Ingredion Price Performance

Shares of Ingredion stock opened at $142.16 on Wednesday. The firm has a market cap of $9.26 billion, a P/E ratio of 13.87, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.24 and a beta of 0.74. The firm’s 50-day simple moving average is $141.92 and its 200-day simple moving average is $130.98. Ingredion has a twelve month low of $105.78 and a twelve month high of $155.44. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.44, a quick ratio of 1.69 and a current ratio of 2.67.

Ingredion (NYSE:INGR) last released its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, November 5th. The company reported $3.05 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.58 by $0.47. The company had revenue of $1.87 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.94 billion. Ingredion had a return on equity of 17.75% and a net margin of 9.05%. The company’s quarterly revenue was down 8.0% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the business earned $2.33 earnings per share. As a group, research analysts expect that Ingredion will post 10.59 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Insider Activity

In other news, CFO James D. Gray sold 54,869 shares of Ingredion stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, November 29th. The shares were sold at an average price of $146.76, for a total transaction of $8,052,574.44. Following the completion of the sale, the chief financial officer now owns 12,795 shares in the company, valued at $1,877,794.20. The trade was a 81.09 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this link. Also, CEO James P. Zallie sold 371 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, October 10th. The shares were sold at an average price of $133.58, for a total transaction of $49,558.18. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 52,159 shares in the company, valued at $6,967,399.22. This represents a 0.71 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last ninety days, insiders sold 66,198 shares of company stock valued at $9,702,461. Company insiders own 1.80% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several brokerages have recently commented on INGR. BMO Capital Markets boosted their target price on shares of Ingredion from $128.00 to $147.00 and gave the company a “market perform” rating in a research note on Wednesday, November 6th. Oppenheimer boosted their price target on shares of Ingredion from $147.00 to $178.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Wednesday, November 6th. Barclays raised their price objective on shares of Ingredion from $145.00 to $168.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Wednesday, November 6th. UBS Group boosted their target price on Ingredion from $165.00 to $173.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Friday, November 15th. Finally, Stephens upgraded Ingredion to a “hold” rating in a research report on Monday, December 2nd. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and five have issued a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $155.17.

Ingredion Company Profile

Ingredion Incorporated, together with its subsidiaries, manufactures and sells sweeteners, starches, nutrition ingredients, and biomaterial solutions derived from wet milling and processing corn, and other starch-based materials to a range of industries in North America, South America, the Asia Pacific, Europe, the Middle East, and Africa.