ICL Group Ltd (NYSE:ICL) Increases Dividend to $0.04 Per Share

ICL Group Ltd (NYSE:ICL) announced a quarterly dividend on Thursday, February 27th, Wall Street Journal reports. Investors of record on Wednesday, March 12th will be given a dividend of 0.0403 per share by the basic materials company on Tuesday, March 25th. This represents a $0.16 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 2.68%. The ex-dividend date is Wednesday, March 12th. This is a positive change from ICL Group’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.01.

ICL Group has decreased its dividend by an average of 3.5% annually over the last three years. ICL Group has a payout ratio of 43.8% meaning its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Equities research analysts expect ICL Group to earn $0.42 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $0.21 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 50.0%.

ICL Group Stock Down 2.2 %

ICL stock opened at $6.02 on Friday. The company has a market cap of $7.90 billion, a P/E ratio of 19.40, a P/E/G ratio of 7.10 and a beta of 1.23. ICL Group has a 52 week low of $3.79 and a 52 week high of $6.57. The company’s 50-day moving average price is $5.67 and its 200 day moving average price is $4.80. The company has a current ratio of 1.56, a quick ratio of 0.91 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.30.

ICL Group (NYSE:ICL) last announced its earnings results on Wednesday, February 26th. The basic materials company reported $0.08 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, hitting analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.08. The company had revenue of $1.60 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $1.65 billion. ICL Group had a net margin of 5.83% and a return on equity of 8.31%. On average, research analysts expect that ICL Group will post 0.37 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of brokerages have issued reports on ICL. Barclays upgraded shares of ICL Group from an “underweight” rating to an “equal weight” rating and lifted their target price for the stock from $4.00 to $6.00 in a research report on Tuesday, January 21st. StockNews.com lowered shares of ICL Group from a “strong-buy” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report on Thursday. Finally, BMO Capital Markets boosted their price objective on shares of ICL Group from $6.00 to $6.50 and gave the company a “market perform” rating in a research report on Thursday.

About ICL Group

ICL Group Ltd, together with its subsidiaries, operates as a specialty minerals and chemicals company worldwide. It operates in four segments: Industrial Products, Potash, Phosphate Solutions, and Growing Solutions. The Industrial Products segment produces bromine out of a solution that is a by-product of the potash production process, as well as bromine-based compounds; produces various grades of potash, salt, magnesium chloride, and magnesia products; and produces and markets phosphorous-based flame retardants and other phosphorus-based products.