Haleon (NYSE:HLN) Shares Up 3.7% Following Dividend Announcement

Haleon plc (NYSE:HLN) traded up 3.7% during mid-day trading on Monday following a dividend announcement from the company. The company traded as high as $10.64 and last traded at $10.56. 5,868,120 shares were traded during mid-day trading, a decline of 9% from the average session volume of 6,443,225 shares. The stock had previously closed at $10.18.

The newly announced dividend which will be paid on Thursday, June 5th. Investors of record on Friday, April 25th will be paid a $0.1166 dividend. This is a boost from Haleon’s previous — dividend of $0.05. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, April 25th. This represents a dividend yield of 1.6%. Haleon’s payout ratio is presently 58.97%.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several brokerages recently weighed in on HLN. Morgan Stanley lowered shares of Haleon from an “overweight” rating to an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Friday, January 10th. Sanford C. Bernstein lowered shares of Haleon from an “outperform” rating to a “market perform” rating in a research note on Wednesday, January 8th. Three analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, three have assigned a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $10.95.

Haleon Stock Performance

The stock has a fifty day moving average price of $9.59 and a 200 day moving average price of $9.84. The company has a current ratio of 0.84, a quick ratio of 0.58 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.44. The firm has a market cap of $47.94 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 31.15, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.82 and a beta of 0.28.

Haleon (NYSE:HLN) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, February 27th. The company reported $0.05 EPS for the quarter. Haleon had a return on equity of 14.76% and a net margin of 10.85%. The company had revenue of $3.54 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $3.38 billion. As a group, analysts predict that Haleon plc will post 0.43 earnings per share for the current year.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of the company. FMR LLC boosted its holdings in Haleon by 3.7% during the fourth quarter. FMR LLC now owns 108,827,814 shares of the company’s stock valued at $1,038,217,000 after acquiring an additional 3,909,545 shares during the period. Wellington Management Group LLP lifted its position in shares of Haleon by 67.5% during the 4th quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP now owns 15,328,325 shares of the company’s stock worth $146,232,000 after purchasing an additional 6,175,835 shares during the last quarter. Douglas Lane & Associates LLC boosted its stake in Haleon by 1.9% during the 4th quarter. Douglas Lane & Associates LLC now owns 8,624,149 shares of the company’s stock valued at $82,274,000 after purchasing an additional 161,865 shares during the period. Envestnet Asset Management Inc. increased its position in Haleon by 0.8% in the 4th quarter. Envestnet Asset Management Inc. now owns 7,630,307 shares of the company’s stock worth $72,793,000 after buying an additional 58,444 shares during the period. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. increased its position in Haleon by 18.3% in the 4th quarter. JPMorgan Chase & Co. now owns 6,014,903 shares of the company’s stock worth $57,382,000 after buying an additional 930,701 shares during the period. 6.67% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

About Haleon

Haleon plc, together with its subsidiaries, engages in the research, development, manufacture, and sale of various consumer healthcare products in North America, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Latin America, and the Asia Pacific. The company provides oral health products, such as toothpastes, mouth washes, and denture care products under the Sensodyne, Polident, Parodontax, Biotene brands; and vitamins, minerals, and supplements under Centrum, Emergen-C, Caltrate brands.