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

Celanese Co. (NYSE:CE) declared a quarterly dividend on Thursday, October 17th, RTT News reports. Investors of record on Wednesday, October 30th will be paid a dividend of 0.70 per share by the basic materials company on Wednesday, November 13th. This represents a $2.80 annualized dividend and a yield of 2.07%.

Celanese has increased its dividend by an average of 4.1% annually over the last three years and has increased its dividend every year for the last 14 years. Celanese has a payout ratio of 22.2% indicating that its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Equities research 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 NYSE CE opened at $135.49 on Friday. Celanese has a twelve month low of $110.76 and a twelve month high of $172.16. 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 firm has a 50-day moving average of $129.56 and a two-hundred day moving average of $141.32. The company has a market capitalization of $14.80 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 7.46, a PEG ratio of 0.70 and a beta of 1.30.

Celanese (NYSE:CE) last issued its earnings results on Thursday, August 1st. The basic materials company reported $2.38 earnings per share for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.71 by ($0.33). The business had revenue of $2.65 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $2.76 billion. Celanese had a return on equity of 13.60% and a net margin of 18.24%. The company’s quarterly revenue was down 5.2% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business posted $2.17 earnings per share. As a group, analysts expect that Celanese will post 10.32 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In related news, COO Scott A. Richardson sold 4,675 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, August 19th. The stock was 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 of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $9,033,840.54. The trade was a 0.00 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this link. Insiders own 0.33% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

CE has been the topic of a number of recent analyst reports. Wells Fargo & Company cut their target price on Celanese from $180.00 to $165.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a research report on Monday, August 5th. Bank of America reduced their price objective on shares of Celanese from $137.00 to $128.00 and set an “underperform” rating for the company in a research note on Monday, August 12th. Piper Sandler downgraded shares of Celanese from an “overweight” rating to a “neutral” rating and dropped their target price for the stock from $180.00 to $150.00 in a research report on Thursday, September 5th. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft reduced their price target on shares of Celanese from $160.00 to $135.00 and set a “hold” rating for the company in a research report on Monday, August 12th. Finally, Barclays cut their target price 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. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, ten have assigned a hold rating and four have given a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $152.87.

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.