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

Celanese Co. (NYSE:CE) announced a quarterly dividend on Wednesday, July 17th, RTT News reports. Shareholders of record on Tuesday, July 30th will be given a dividend of 0.70 per share by the basic materials company on Monday, August 12th. This represents a $2.80 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 2.01%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Tuesday, July 30th.

Celanese has raised its dividend payment by an average of 4.1% annually over the last three years and has raised its dividend every year for the last 14 years. Celanese has a payout ratio of 20.5% meaning its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Equities research analysts expect Celanese to earn $13.56 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 20.6%.

Celanese Stock Performance

NYSE:CE opened at $139.08 on Monday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.46, a current ratio of 1.21 and a quick ratio of 0.73. The firm has a market cap of $15.19 billion, a PE ratio of 7.65, a P/E/G ratio of 0.60 and a beta of 1.30. The firm has a 50 day simple moving average of $142.23 and a 200-day simple moving average of $150.62. Celanese has a 1-year low of $110.76 and a 1-year high of $172.16.

Celanese (NYSE:CE) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, May 8th. The basic materials company reported $2.08 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.91 by $0.17. Celanese had a return on equity of 14.00% and a net margin of 18.60%. The company had revenue of $2.61 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $2.67 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the firm posted $2.01 EPS. Celanese’s revenue was down 8.5% on a year-over-year basis. On average, equities analysts expect that Celanese will post 11.26 EPS for the current year.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of research analysts have recently commented on CE shares. JPMorgan Chase & Co. reaffirmed an “underweight” rating and set a $160.00 price objective (up previously from $135.00) on shares of Celanese in a research note on Thursday, April 4th. Robert W. Baird increased their price target on shares of Celanese from $165.00 to $180.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research note on Friday, May 10th. Piper Sandler boosted their price objective on shares of Celanese from $170.00 to $180.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Friday, May 17th. BMO Capital Markets reaffirmed a “market perform” rating and issued a $158.00 target price on shares of Celanese in a research report on Tuesday, June 11th. Finally, Barclays downgraded Celanese from an “overweight” rating to an “equal weight” rating and set a $170.00 price target for the company. in a research report on Thursday, April 4th. Four investment analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, seven have assigned a hold rating and six have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $162.75.

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.