Celanese Co. (CE) to Issue Quarterly Dividend of $0.03 on March 11th

Celanese Co. (NYSE:CE) announced a quarterly dividend on Wednesday, February 12th, RTT News reports. Stockholders of record on Tuesday, February 25th will be paid a dividend of 0.03 per share by the basic materials company on Tuesday, March 11th. This represents a $0.12 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.23%. The ex-dividend date is Tuesday, February 25th.

Celanese has raised its dividend by an average of 1.0% annually over the last three years. Celanese has a payout ratio of 1.4% meaning its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Analysts expect Celanese to earn $10.10 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $0.12 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 1.2%.

Celanese Price Performance

Shares of NYSE CE opened at $52.75 on Friday. The firm’s 50-day moving average price is $68.25 and its 200-day moving average price is $96.95. The firm has a market capitalization of $5.77 billion, a P/E ratio of -3.79, a P/E/G ratio of 1.05 and a beta of 1.17. The company has a current ratio of 1.34, a quick ratio of 0.76 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.98. Celanese has a 1-year low of $51.24 and a 1-year high of $172.16.

Celanese (NYSE:CE) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, February 18th. The basic materials company reported $1.45 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.25 by $0.20. The firm had revenue of $2.37 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $2.36 billion. Celanese had a negative net margin of 14.81% and a positive return on equity of 12.86%. Equities research analysts anticipate that Celanese will post 8.79 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of equities analysts have commented on CE shares. Bank of America raised shares of Celanese from an “underperform” rating to a “buy” rating and cut their price target for the stock from $95.00 to $88.00 in a research note on Tuesday, January 14th. BMO Capital Markets lowered their target price on Celanese from $73.00 to $46.00 and set an “underperform” rating for the company in a research note on Thursday. Piper Sandler cut their price target on shares of Celanese from $98.00 to $77.00 and set an “underweight” rating on the stock in a report on Tuesday, January 7th. Vertical Research lowered Celanese from a “hold” rating to a “sell” rating and set a $130.00 price objective on the stock. in a research report on Tuesday, October 29th. Finally, Citigroup upgraded shares of Celanese to a “neutral” rating and boosted their price target for the company from $73.00 to $76.00 in a research report on Thursday, January 23rd. Four analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, nine have assigned a hold rating and three have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $80.00.

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.