Warner Music Group Corp. Declares Quarterly Dividend of $0.18 (NASDAQ:WMG)

Warner Music Group Corp. (NASDAQ:WMG) announced a quarterly dividend on Friday, February 14th,RTT News reports. Shareholders of record on Monday, February 24th will be paid a dividend of 0.18 per share on Tuesday, March 4th. This represents a $0.72 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.99%.

Warner Music Group has raised its dividend payment by an average of 9.0% annually over the last three years. Warner Music Group has a dividend payout ratio of 47.7% meaning its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Equities analysts expect Warner Music Group to earn $1.61 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $0.72 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 44.7%.

Warner Music Group Stock Up 3.1 %

Shares of NASDAQ WMG opened at $36.19 on Friday. The company has a market cap of $18.75 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 37.15, a PEG ratio of 0.94 and a beta of 1.35. The company has a current ratio of 0.69, a quick ratio of 0.65 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 5.67. Warner Music Group has a 12 month low of $27.06 and a 12 month high of $36.81. The stock has a 50-day moving average price of $31.37 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $30.88.

Warner Music Group (NASDAQ:WMG) last released its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, February 6th. The company reported $0.45 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.34 by $0.11. Warner Music Group had a net margin of 8.07% and a return on equity of 79.01%. As a group, analysts forecast that Warner Music Group will post 1.3 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Insider Buying and Selling at Warner Music Group

In other Warner Music Group news, Director Lincoln E. Benet sold 35,000 shares of Warner Music Group stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, December 20th. The stock was sold at an average price of $30.96, for a total value of $1,083,600.00. Following the completion of the sale, the director now directly owns 242,360 shares in the company, valued at approximately $7,503,465.60. The trade was a 12.62 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Insiders own 72.21% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of research analysts have recently commented on the company. Barclays dropped their price target on Warner Music Group from $32.00 to $31.00 and set an “equal weight” rating for the company in a research note on Friday, November 22nd. Citigroup upgraded Warner Music Group from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and increased their target price for the company from $34.00 to $42.00 in a research report on Friday. Loop Capital reduced their price target on Warner Music Group from $38.00 to $35.00 and set a “hold” rating on the stock in a report on Monday, November 25th. UBS Group dropped their price objective on shares of Warner Music Group from $43.00 to $41.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a report on Friday, January 10th. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. cut their target price on shares of Warner Music Group from $41.00 to $40.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a research report on Friday, November 22nd. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, four have issued a hold rating and ten have given a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Warner Music Group currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $35.81.

Warner Music Group Company Profile

Warner Music Group Corp. operates as a music entertainment company in the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, and internationally. It operates through Recorded Music and Music Publishing segments. The Recorded Music segment is involved in the discovery and development of recording artists, as well as related marketing, promotion, distribution, sale, and licensing of music created by such recording artists; markets its music catalog through compilations and reissuances of previously released music and video titles, as well as previously unreleased materials; and conducts its operation primarily through a collection of record labels, such as Warner Records and Atlantic Records, as well as Asylum, Big Beat, Canvasback, East West, Erato, FFRR, Fueled by Ramen, Nonesuch, Parlophone, Reprise, Roadrunner, Sire, Spinnin’ Records, Warner Classics, and Warner Music Nashville.