Guess?, Inc. Announces Quarterly Dividend of $0.30 (NYSE:GES)

Guess?, Inc. (NYSE:GES) declared a quarterly dividend on Friday, April 4th, Wall Street Journal reports. Stockholders of record on Wednesday, April 16th will be given a dividend of 0.30 per share on Friday, May 2nd. This represents a $1.20 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 11.00%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Wednesday, April 16th.

Guess? has raised its dividend payment by an average of 28.7% annually over the last three years. Guess? has a payout ratio of 122.4% indicating that the company cannot currently cover its dividend with earnings alone and is relying on its balance sheet to cover its dividend payments. Equities research analysts expect Guess? to earn $2.38 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $1.20 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 50.4%.

Guess? Trading Up 8.6 %

Guess? stock opened at $10.91 on Friday. The stock has a 50-day simple moving average of $11.60 and a 200 day simple moving average of $14.85. The stock has a market capitalization of $561.14 million, a P/E ratio of 9.16 and a beta of 1.43. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.18, a quick ratio of 0.74 and a current ratio of 1.54. Guess? has a 52 week low of $9.24 and a 52 week high of $31.04.

Guess? (NYSE:GES) last posted its earnings results on Thursday, April 3rd. The company reported $1.48 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.41 by $0.07. Guess? had a net margin of 3.19% and a return on equity of 23.29%. The company had revenue of $932.25 million during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $916.75 million. During the same quarter last year, the company posted $2.01 EPS. Guess?’s quarterly revenue was up 4.6% compared to the same quarter last year. Analysts expect that Guess? will post 1.92 earnings per share for the current year.

Guess? declared that its board has approved a stock repurchase plan on Tuesday, March 25th that permits the company to repurchase $200.00 million in outstanding shares. This repurchase authorization permits the company to buy up to 38.5% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares repurchase plans are usually a sign that the company’s management believes its shares are undervalued.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of research firms have issued reports on GES. Telsey Advisory Group reissued a “market perform” rating and issued a $13.00 price objective on shares of Guess? in a report on Friday. UBS Group cut their price target on Guess? from $15.00 to $12.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a research note on Tuesday, March 11th.

About Guess?

Guess?, Inc designs, markets, distributes, and licenses lifestyle collections of apparel and accessories for men, women, and children. It operates through five segments: Americas Retail, Americas Wholesale, Europe, Asia, and Licensing. The company’s clothing collection includes jeans, pants, skirts, dresses, shorts, blouses, shirts, jackets, activewear, knitwear, and intimate apparel.