Flowers Foods, Inc. (NYSE:FLO) to Issue $0.24 Quarterly Dividend

Flowers Foods, Inc. (NYSE:FLO) declared a quarterly dividend on Thursday, August 22nd, NASDAQ reports. Shareholders of record on Friday, September 6th will be paid a dividend of 0.24 per share on Friday, September 20th. This represents a $0.96 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 4.06%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, September 6th.

Flowers Foods has raised its dividend payment by an average of 4.8% per year over the last three years and has increased its dividend annually for the last 23 consecutive years. Flowers Foods has a dividend payout ratio of 72.7% meaning its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Research analysts expect Flowers Foods to earn $1.32 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $0.96 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 72.7%.

Flowers Foods Price Performance

Shares of Flowers Foods stock traded up $0.23 on Thursday, hitting $23.62. The company’s stock had a trading volume of 46,285 shares, compared to its average volume of 1,206,876. The company has a market capitalization of $4.99 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 39.64, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 4.49 and a beta of 0.36. Flowers Foods has a 1 year low of $19.64 and a 1 year high of $26.12. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.77, a quick ratio of 0.91 and a current ratio of 1.19. The firm has a fifty day moving average price of $22.44 and a 200-day moving average price of $23.10.

Flowers Foods (NYSE:FLO) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Friday, August 16th. The company reported $0.36 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.33 by $0.03. The business had revenue of $1.23 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $1.24 billion. Flowers Foods had a return on equity of 18.97% and a net margin of 2.51%. The business’s revenue was down .3% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the business earned $0.33 earnings per share. As a group, sell-side analysts anticipate that Flowers Foods will post 1.25 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

FLO has been the topic of several recent analyst reports. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft increased their price objective on shares of Flowers Foods from $22.00 to $23.00 and gave the company a “hold” rating in a report on Thursday, May 9th. StockNews.com upgraded Flowers Foods from a “buy” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Wednesday, August 28th. DA Davidson raised their target price on Flowers Foods from $24.00 to $25.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Friday, May 17th. Finally, BNP Paribas began coverage on Flowers Foods in a research report on Wednesday, July 10th. They set an “underperform” rating and a $20.00 price target for the company. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, three have assigned a hold rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, Flowers Foods presently has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $22.75.

Flowers Foods Company Profile

Flowers Foods, Inc produces and markets packaged bakery food products in the United States. Its principal products include fresh breads, buns, rolls, snack items, bagels, English muffins, and tortillas, as well as frozen breads and rolls under the Nature's Own, Dave's Killer Bread, Wonder, Canyon Bakehouse, Mrs.