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

Celanese Co. (NYSE:CE) announced a quarterly dividend on Thursday, October 17th, RTT News reports. Stockholders of record on Wednesday, October 30th will be given a dividend of 0.70 per share by the basic materials company on Wednesday, November 13th. This represents a $2.80 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 2.15%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Wednesday, October 30th.

Celanese has increased its dividend by an average of 4.1% per year over the last three years and has raised its dividend every year for the last 14 years. Celanese has a dividend payout ratio of 22.4% indicating that its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. 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 Trading Up 0.9 %

NYSE CE opened at $130.00 on Tuesday. Celanese has a 1 year low of $110.76 and a 1 year high of $172.16. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.45, a current ratio of 1.28 and a quick ratio of 0.74. The company has a market capitalization of $14.20 billion, a PE ratio of 7.15, a P/E/G ratio of 0.70 and a beta of 1.30. The company has a fifty day moving average of $130.06 and a 200 day moving average of $139.51.

Celanese (NYSE:CE) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, August 1st. The basic materials company reported $2.38 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $2.71 by ($0.33). The company had revenue of $2.65 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $2.76 billion. Celanese had a net margin of 18.24% and a return on equity of 13.60%. The business’s quarterly revenue was down 5.2% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period last year, the firm earned $2.17 EPS. Research analysts forecast that Celanese will post 10.32 earnings per share for the current year.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other Celanese news, COO Scott A. Richardson sold 4,675 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction 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 transaction, the chief operating officer now owns 69,754 shares in the company, valued at approximately $9,033,840.54. This trade represents a 0.00 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is accessible through the SEC website. 0.33% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

CE has been the topic of a number of analyst reports. Wells Fargo & Company dropped their price objective on shares of Celanese from $180.00 to $165.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a research note on Monday, August 5th. Robert W. Baird dropped their price target on shares of Celanese from $180.00 to $150.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a research report on Monday, August 5th. Piper Sandler downgraded shares of Celanese from an “overweight” rating to a “neutral” rating and decreased their price objective for the stock from $180.00 to $150.00 in a research report on Thursday, September 5th. UBS Group lowered their target price on shares of Celanese from $193.00 to $184.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research note on Tuesday, July 9th. Finally, KeyCorp lowered Celanese from an “overweight” rating to a “sector weight” rating in a research note on Monday, October 7th. Three equities research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, ten have issued a hold rating and four have assigned a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, Celanese presently has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $151.44.

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.