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

Crown Castle Inc. (NYSE:CCI) announced a quarterly dividend on Wednesday, February 26th, RTT News reports. Investors of record on Friday, March 14th will be given a dividend of 1.565 per share by the real estate investment trust on Monday, March 31st. This represents a $6.26 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 6.69%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, March 14th.

Crown Castle has raised its dividend payment by an average of 4.7% per year over the last three years. Crown Castle has a payout ratio of 222.0% meaning the company cannot currently cover its dividend with earnings alone and is relying on its balance sheet to cover its dividend payments. Analysts expect Crown Castle to earn $6.58 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 95.1%.

Crown Castle Stock Performance

CCI stock opened at $93.58 on Friday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 4.43, a quick ratio of 0.54 and a current ratio of 0.54. The stock has a market cap of $40.67 billion, a P/E ratio of 33.18 and a beta of 0.88. The firm has a 50 day simple moving average of $89.69 and a 200 day simple moving average of $102.55. Crown Castle has a 52 week low of $84.20 and a 52 week high of $120.92.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

CCI has been the subject of a number of analyst reports. Citigroup reduced their target price on shares of Crown Castle from $128.00 to $106.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research note on Thursday, February 13th. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft reduced their target price on shares of Crown Castle from $116.00 to $96.00 and set a “hold” rating for the company in a research note on Thursday, January 23rd. Wells Fargo & Company reduced their price objective on shares of Crown Castle from $100.00 to $85.00 and set an “underweight” rating for the company in a research note on Thursday, January 23rd. Citizens Jmp raised shares of Crown Castle to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Monday, January 27th. Finally, JMP Securities assumed coverage on shares of Crown Castle in a report on Monday, January 27th. They set an “outperform” rating and a $115.00 price objective for the company. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, ten have given a hold rating, five have given a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $108.75.

About Crown Castle

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.