Cabot Co. (NYSE:CBT) Announces Quarterly Dividend of $0.43

Cabot Co. (NYSE:CBT) declared a quarterly dividend on Friday, January 10th,RTT News reports. Shareholders of record on Friday, February 28th will be paid a dividend of 0.43 per share by the specialty chemicals company on Friday, March 14th. This represents a $1.72 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.98%.

Cabot has increased its dividend payment by an average of 6.0% per year over the last three years and has raised its dividend every year for the last 13 years. Cabot has a payout ratio of 20.4% indicating that its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Research analysts expect Cabot to earn $8.42 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $1.72 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 20.4%.

Cabot Trading Down 1.2 %

Shares of NYSE CBT opened at $86.65 on Friday. The stock has a market cap of $4.71 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 12.86, a PEG ratio of 0.90 and a beta of 1.21. The business has a 50 day simple moving average of $102.39 and a 200 day simple moving average of $102.38. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.68, a quick ratio of 1.36 and a current ratio of 2.08. Cabot has a 52 week low of $70.63 and a 52 week high of $117.46.

Cabot (NYSE:CBT) last released its quarterly earnings results on Monday, November 4th. The specialty chemicals company reported $1.80 earnings per share for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.81 by ($0.01). The business had revenue of $1 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.01 billion. Cabot had a net margin of 9.51% and a return on equity of 26.60%. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 3.7% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business posted $1.65 EPS. On average, research analysts predict that Cabot will post 7.67 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Cabot announced that its board has initiated a stock repurchase program on Tuesday, December 3rd that authorizes the company to buyback 10,000,000 shares. This buyback authorization authorizes the specialty chemicals company to buy shares of its stock through open market purchases. Stock buyback programs are generally an indication that the company’s board believes its stock is undervalued.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, EVP Jeff Ji Zhu sold 14,566 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Wednesday, November 13th. The shares were sold at an average price of $113.25, for a total value of $1,649,599.50. Following the sale, the executive vice president now owns 69,449 shares in the company, valued at approximately $7,865,099.25. The trade was a 17.34 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this link. Also, CAO Lisa M. Dumont sold 865 shares of Cabot stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, November 13th. The shares were sold at an average price of $111.74, for a total transaction of $96,655.10. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief accounting officer now owns 9,742 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $1,088,571.08. This trade represents a 8.15 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last quarter, insiders sold 50,190 shares of company stock worth $5,751,534. 3.07% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

CBT has been the subject of several analyst reports. Mizuho reduced their target price on Cabot from $122.00 to $110.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a report on Tuesday, January 7th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. downgraded shares of Cabot from a “neutral” rating to an “underweight” rating and set a $105.00 price objective for the company. in a report on Monday, November 11th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, two have given a hold rating and two have issued a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, Cabot presently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $102.00.

About Cabot

Cabot Corporation operates as a specialty chemicals and performance materials company. The company operates through two segments, Reinforcement Materials and Performance Chemicals. It offers reinforcing carbons that are used in tires as a rubber reinforcing agent and performance additive, as well as in industrial products, such as hoses, belts, extruded profiles, and molded goods; and engineered elastomer composites solutions.