Cousins Properties Incorporated Plans Quarterly Dividend of $0.32 (NYSE:CUZ)

Cousins Properties Incorporated (NYSE:CUZ) declared a quarterly dividend on Tuesday, March 18th, RTT News reports. Stockholders of record on Thursday, April 3rd will be given a dividend of 0.32 per share by the real estate investment trust on Tuesday, April 15th. This represents a $1.28 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 4.34%.

Cousins Properties has decreased its dividend payment by an average of 0.8% per year over the last three years. Cousins Properties has a payout ratio of 272.3% indicating that the company cannot currently cover its dividend with earnings alone and is relying on its balance sheet to cover its dividend payments. Analysts expect Cousins Properties to earn $2.84 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $1.28 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 45.1%.

Cousins Properties Price Performance

Shares of CUZ opened at $29.52 on Wednesday. The company has a market cap of $4.95 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 98.41, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.98 and a beta of 1.28. Cousins Properties has a twelve month low of $21.58 and a twelve month high of $32.55. The company has a quick ratio of 0.74, a current ratio of 0.74 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.64. The company has a 50 day moving average of $29.92 and a two-hundred day moving average of $30.17.

Cousins Properties (NYSE:CUZ) last announced its earnings results on Thursday, February 6th. The real estate investment trust reported $0.69 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.07 by $0.62. Cousins Properties had a net margin of 5.36% and a return on equity of 1.00%. As a group, analysts predict that Cousins Properties will post 2.76 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several brokerages have weighed in on CUZ. Robert W. Baird lowered their target price on shares of Cousins Properties from $34.00 to $33.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research note on Monday, February 24th. Mizuho upgraded shares of Cousins Properties from an “underperform” rating to a “neutral” rating and lifted their price objective for the stock from $22.00 to $30.00 in a research note on Tuesday, January 7th. KeyCorp upgraded shares of Cousins Properties from a “sector weight” rating to an “overweight” rating and set a $34.00 price objective for the company in a research note on Tuesday, December 17th. StockNews.com upgraded shares of Cousins Properties from a “sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Tuesday. Finally, Barclays lowered their price objective on shares of Cousins Properties from $36.00 to $35.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a research note on Monday, February 3rd. Four investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and six have given a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $32.89.

About Cousins Properties

Cousins Properties Incorporated ("Cousins") is a fully integrated, self-administered, and self-managed real estate investment trust (REIT). The Company, based in Atlanta and acting through its operating partnership, Cousins Properties LP, primarily invests in Class A office buildings located in high-growth Sun Belt markets.