Ingredion Incorporated (NYSE:INGR) Announces $0.80 Quarterly Dividend

Ingredion Incorporated (NYSE:INGR) declared a quarterly dividend on Tuesday, December 17th,Wall Street Journal reports. Shareholders of record on Thursday, January 2nd will be paid a dividend of 0.80 per share on Tuesday, January 21st. This represents a $3.20 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 2.33%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, January 2nd.

Ingredion has raised its dividend by an average of 5.5% annually over the last three years and has raised its dividend annually for the last 14 consecutive years. Ingredion has a payout ratio of 28.8% indicating that its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Analysts expect Ingredion to earn $11.16 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $3.20 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 28.7%.

Ingredion Price Performance

NYSE:INGR opened at $137.14 on Tuesday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.44, a quick ratio of 1.69 and a current ratio of 2.67. The firm has a market cap of $8.94 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 13.38, a P/E/G ratio of 1.24 and a beta of 0.74. Ingredion has a 52 week low of $106.03 and a 52 week high of $155.44. The firm’s 50-day simple moving average is $142.78 and its 200 day simple moving average is $132.47.

Ingredion (NYSE:INGR) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, November 5th. The company reported $3.05 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.58 by $0.47. The business had revenue of $1.87 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.94 billion. Ingredion had a return on equity of 17.75% and a net margin of 9.05%. The firm’s quarterly revenue was down 8.0% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business posted $2.33 earnings per share. As a group, sell-side analysts predict that Ingredion will post 10.59 earnings per share for the current year.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other Ingredion news, SVP Larry Fernandes sold 6,122 shares of Ingredion stock in a transaction dated Friday, November 15th. The stock was sold at an average price of $140.66, for a total transaction of $861,120.52. Following the completion of the transaction, the senior vice president now owns 29,034 shares in the company, valued at approximately $4,083,922.44. The trade was a 17.41 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through the SEC website. Also, CEO James P. Zallie sold 371 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, October 10th. The stock was sold at an average price of $133.58, for a total value of $49,558.18. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 52,159 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $6,967,399.22. This trade represents a 0.71 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 66,197 shares of company stock valued at $9,702,325 over the last quarter. Insiders own 1.80% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

INGR has been the topic of a number of recent analyst reports. Oppenheimer lifted their price objective on shares of Ingredion from $147.00 to $178.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Wednesday, November 6th. Barclays boosted their price target on Ingredion from $145.00 to $168.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Wednesday, November 6th. Stephens upgraded Ingredion to a “hold” rating in a research report on Monday, December 2nd. BMO Capital Markets raised their price target on shares of Ingredion from $128.00 to $147.00 and gave the company a “market perform” rating in a research note on Wednesday, November 6th. Finally, UBS Group increased their price objective on shares of Ingredion from $165.00 to $173.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, November 15th. Two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and five have given a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $155.17.

About Ingredion

Ingredion Incorporated, together with its subsidiaries, manufactures and sells sweeteners, starches, nutrition ingredients, and biomaterial solutions derived from wet milling and processing corn, and other starch-based materials to a range of industries in North America, South America, the Asia Pacific, Europe, the Middle East, and Africa.