Matson, Inc. (NYSE:MATX) Announces Dividend Increase – $0.34 Per Share

Matson, Inc. (NYSE:MATX) declared a quarterly dividend on Thursday, June 27th, Zacks reports. Investors of record on Thursday, August 1st will be given a dividend of 0.34 per share by the shipping company on Thursday, September 5th. This represents a $1.36 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.04%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, August 1st. This is a positive change from Matson’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.32.

Matson has increased its dividend payment by an average of 11.9% annually over the last three years and has raised its dividend annually for the last 12 consecutive years. Matson has a payout ratio of 14.3% indicating that its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Analysts expect Matson to earn $8.91 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $1.28 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 14.4%.

Matson Trading Up 1.6 %

Shares of MATX opened at $130.97 on Friday. The firm has a market cap of $4.58 billion, a P/E ratio of 15.44 and a beta of 1.11. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.16, a current ratio of 0.97 and a quick ratio of 0.97. Matson has a 1 year low of $74.04 and a 1 year high of $133.53. The company has a 50 day simple moving average of $118.48 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $113.77.

Matson (NYSE:MATX) last posted its earnings results on Tuesday, April 30th. The shipping company reported $1.04 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.99 by $0.05. The company had revenue of $722.10 million during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $730.44 million. Matson had a net margin of 9.61% and a return on equity of 12.66%. Matson’s quarterly revenue was up 2.5% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period last year, the company posted $0.94 earnings per share. On average, equities analysts expect that Matson will post 10.1 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of equities research analysts recently commented on MATX shares. Stephens reiterated an “overweight” rating and issued a $135.00 target price on shares of Matson in a research report on Friday, May 24th. Stifel Nicolaus upped their price objective on Matson from $109.00 to $111.00 and gave the stock a “hold” rating in a report on Wednesday, May 1st. Finally, StockNews.com raised shares of Matson from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a report on Monday, June 24th.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other Matson news, CEO Matthew J. Cox sold 7,843 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, June 28th. The stock was sold at an average price of $130.54, for a total transaction of $1,023,825.22. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 230,397 shares in the company, valued at $30,076,024.38. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. In related news, CEO Matthew J. Cox sold 7,843 shares of Matson stock in a transaction dated Friday, June 28th. The shares were sold at an average price of $130.54, for a total transaction of $1,023,825.22. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 230,397 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $30,076,024.38. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available through the SEC website. Also, SVP John Warren Sullivan sold 893 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, May 8th. The shares were sold at an average price of $110.60, for a total transaction of $98,765.80. Following the transaction, the senior vice president now owns 13,495 shares in the company, valued at $1,492,547. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last quarter, insiders sold 22,269 shares of company stock worth $2,795,413. Corporate insiders own 2.32% of the company’s stock.

Matson Company Profile

Matson, Inc, together with its subsidiaries, engages in the provision of ocean transportation and logistics services. It operates through two segments, Ocean Transportation and Logistics. The Ocean Transportation segment offers ocean freight transportation services to the domestic non-contiguous economies of Hawaii, Japan, Alaska, and Guam, as well as to other island economies in Micronesia.