Crown Castle Inc. (NYSE:CCI) Declares Quarterly Dividend of $1.57

Crown Castle Inc. (NYSE:CCI) declared a quarterly dividend on Wednesday, August 7th, Wall Street Journal reports. Investors of record on Friday, September 13th will be paid a dividend of 1.565 per share by the real estate investment trust on Monday, September 30th. This represents a $6.26 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 5.21%. The ex-dividend date is Friday, September 13th.

Crown Castle has raised its dividend payment by an average of 8.3% per year over the last three years. Crown Castle has a dividend payout ratio of 233.6% meaning the company cannot currently cover its dividend with earnings alone and is relying on its balance sheet to cover its dividend payments. Equities analysts expect Crown Castle to earn $6.51 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $6.26 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 96.2%.

Crown Castle Trading Up 0.2 %

Shares of NYSE:CCI opened at $120.14 on Thursday. The company has a market capitalization of $52.20 billion, a PE ratio of 37.54 and a beta of 0.85. The company has a current ratio of 0.43, a quick ratio of 0.43 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 4.04. Crown Castle has a 12-month low of $84.72 and a 12-month high of $120.31. The business’s fifty day simple moving average is $108.87 and its 200-day simple moving average is $103.63.

Crown Castle (NYSE:CCI) last announced its earnings results on Wednesday, July 17th. The real estate investment trust reported $0.58 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.54 by $0.04. Crown Castle had a net margin of 17.98% and a return on equity of 19.20%. The business had revenue of $1.63 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.62 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the company posted $2.05 earnings per share. The firm’s revenue was down 12.9% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, equities research analysts predict that Crown Castle will post 6.64 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several equities analysts have issued reports on CCI shares. Raymond James reaffirmed an “outperform” rating and issued a $126.00 price target (up from $124.00) on shares of Crown Castle in a report on Friday, June 14th. Bank of America upped their target price on Crown Castle from $110.00 to $115.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Tuesday, August 13th. BMO Capital Markets raised their price target on Crown Castle from $105.00 to $108.00 and gave the stock a “market perform” rating in a report on Thursday, July 18th. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft upped their price objective on shares of Crown Castle from $103.00 to $105.00 and gave the company a “hold” rating in a report on Tuesday, July 23rd. Finally, Royal Bank of Canada upped their price target on shares of Crown Castle from $100.00 to $104.00 and gave the company a “sector perform” rating in a research note on Thursday, July 25th. Twelve analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and five have issued a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $113.53.

Insider Buying and Selling at Crown Castle

In other news, COO Michael Joseph Kavanagh sold 10,883 shares of Crown Castle stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, July 23rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $103.72, for a total transaction of $1,128,784.76. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief operating officer now directly owns 75,127 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $7,792,172.44. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available through the SEC website. 0.39% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Crown Castle Company Profile

Crown Castle owns, operates and leases more than 40,000 cell towers and approximately 90,000 route miles of fiber supporting small cells and fiber solutions across every major U.S. market. This nationwide portfolio of communications infrastructure connects cities and communities to essential data, technology and wireless service – bringing information, ideas and innovations to the people and businesses that need them.