CF Industries Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:CF) Declares $0.50 Quarterly Dividend

CF Industries Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:CF) announced a quarterly dividend on Thursday, January 30th,RTT News reports. Stockholders of record on Friday, February 14th will be paid a dividend of 0.50 per share by the basic materials company on Friday, February 28th. This represents a $2.00 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 2.17%.

CF Industries has increased its dividend payment by an average of 18.6% per year over the last three years. CF Industries has a payout ratio of 36.8% meaning its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Analysts expect CF Industries to earn $5.83 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $2.00 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 34.3%.

CF Industries Price Performance

NYSE:CF opened at $92.22 on Friday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.38, a quick ratio of 2.52 and a current ratio of 2.81. The firm has a market cap of $16.05 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 14.59, a P/E/G ratio of 0.74 and a beta of 0.98. CF Industries has a 52 week low of $69.13 and a 52 week high of $98.25. The firm’s 50-day simple moving average is $89.35 and its 200 day simple moving average is $84.18.

CF Industries (NYSE:CF) last announced its earnings results on Wednesday, October 30th. The basic materials company reported $1.55 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $1.05 by $0.50. The company had revenue of $1.37 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $1.28 billion. CF Industries had a net margin of 19.45% and a return on equity of 14.57%. The business’s revenue for the quarter was up 7.6% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period last year, the firm earned $0.85 earnings per share. As a group, sell-side analysts predict that CF Industries will post 6.31 earnings per share for the current year.

Insider Activity at CF Industries

In related news, VP Ashraf K. Malik sold 7,000 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Thursday, November 21st. The stock was sold at an average price of $90.78, for a total transaction of $635,460.00. Following the sale, the vice president now owns 22,211 shares in the company, valued at $2,016,314.58. The trade was a 23.96 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, EVP Bert A. Frost sold 3,000 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, November 20th. The shares were sold at an average price of $88.00, for a total value of $264,000.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the executive vice president now owns 103,155 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $9,077,640. This represents a 2.83 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 25,389 shares of company stock valued at $2,355,425 in the last quarter. Insiders own 0.42% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several equities analysts have weighed in on the company. Mizuho lifted their price objective on CF Industries from $76.00 to $93.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a report on Wednesday, October 9th. Royal Bank of Canada downgraded CF Industries from an “outperform” rating to a “sector perform” rating and set a $100.00 price target for the company. in a research note on Tuesday, January 21st. Scotiabank reaffirmed a “sector underperform” rating and set a $88.00 price objective on shares of CF Industries in a research report on Friday, January 24th. UBS Group raised their target price on shares of CF Industries from $91.00 to $92.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a report on Tuesday. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. downgraded shares of CF Industries from a “neutral” rating to an “underweight” rating and cut their price target for the stock from $82.00 to $75.00 in a report on Friday, January 24th. Three analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, six have issued a hold rating and five have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the company has an average rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $92.43.

CF Industries Company Profile

CF Industries Holdings, Inc, together with its subsidiaries, engages in the manufacture and sale of hydrogen and nitrogen products for energy, fertilizer, emissions abatement, and other industrial activities in North America, Europe, and internationally. It operates through Ammonia, Granular Urea, UAN, AN, and Other segments.