W. R. Berkley Co. Announces Quarterly Dividend of $0.08 (NYSE:WRB)

W. R. Berkley Co. (NYSE:WRB) declared a quarterly dividend on Friday, December 6th,Wall Street Journal reports. Investors of record on Monday, December 16th will be given a dividend of 0.08 per share by the insurance provider on Friday, December 27th. This represents a $0.32 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.53%. The ex-dividend date is Monday, December 16th.

W. R. Berkley has raised its dividend payment by an average of 11.1% annually over the last three years and has raised its dividend every year for the last 23 years. W. R. Berkley has a payout ratio of 7.4% meaning its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Research analysts expect W. R. Berkley to earn $4.33 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $0.32 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 7.4%.

W. R. Berkley Price Performance

Shares of NYSE WRB opened at $60.78 on Friday. The firm has a 50-day moving average of $60.40 and a two-hundred day moving average of $57.48. The company has a market capitalization of $23.16 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 15.57, a PEG ratio of 1.17 and a beta of 0.65. W. R. Berkley has a twelve month low of $45.75 and a twelve month high of $65.49. The company has a current ratio of 0.36, a quick ratio of 0.36 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.34.

W. R. Berkley (NYSE:WRB) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Monday, October 21st. The insurance provider reported $0.93 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.92 by $0.01. W. R. Berkley had a return on equity of 20.41% and a net margin of 11.96%. The firm had revenue of $2.93 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $2.93 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the firm earned $0.90 earnings per share. W. R. Berkley’s quarterly revenue was up 10.8% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, analysts expect that W. R. Berkley will post 3.96 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several analysts recently commented on the stock. Truist Financial raised their price target on shares of W. R. Berkley from $64.00 to $68.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Thursday, October 17th. UBS Group raised their price target on W. R. Berkley from $67.00 to $69.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Tuesday, October 22nd. Royal Bank of Canada raised their target price on shares of W. R. Berkley from $57.00 to $63.00 and gave the company a “sector perform” rating in a research note on Tuesday, October 22nd. StockNews.com raised shares of W. R. Berkley from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report on Wednesday. Finally, Morgan Stanley started coverage on W. R. Berkley in a research report on Thursday, December 5th. They issued an “equal weight” rating and a $65.00 price target on the stock. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, six have issued a hold rating and seven have issued a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $64.28.

W. R. Berkley Company Profile

W. R. Berkley Corporation, an insurance holding company, operates as a commercial lines writers worldwide. It operates in two segments, Insurance and Reinsurance & Monoline Excess. The Insurance segment underwrites commercial insurance business, including excess and surplus lines, admitted lines, and specialty personal lines.