Griffon Co. Declares Quarterly Dividend of $0.18 (NYSE:GFF)

Griffon Co. (NYSE:GFF) announced a quarterly dividend on Wednesday, February 5th,RTT News reports. Stockholders of record on Tuesday, February 25th will be paid a dividend of 0.18 per share by the conglomerate on Tuesday, March 18th. This represents a $0.72 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.88%.

Griffon has raised its dividend by an average of 24.1% per year over the last three years. Griffon has a dividend payout ratio of 11.0% indicating that its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Research analysts expect Griffon to earn $6.39 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $0.72 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 11.3%.

Griffon Stock Performance

GFF stock traded up $7.27 during trading on Wednesday, reaching $81.58. The company had a trading volume of 70,633 shares, compared to its average volume of 300,915. The company has a market cap of $3.92 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 19.70 and a beta of 1.43. Griffon has a twelve month low of $55.01 and a twelve month high of $86.73. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 6.74, a quick ratio of 1.44 and a current ratio of 2.66. The firm has a 50-day simple moving average of $76.14 and a 200-day simple moving average of $70.81.

Griffon (NYSE:GFF) last issued its earnings results on Wednesday, February 5th. The conglomerate reported $1.39 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.28 by $0.11. Griffon had a return on equity of 108.70% and a net margin of 8.00%. As a group, sell-side analysts expect that Griffon will post 5.51 earnings per share for the current year.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other Griffon news, Director James W. Sight sold 3,660 shares of Griffon stock in a transaction dated Thursday, November 14th. The shares were sold at an average price of $76.42, for a total transaction of $279,697.20. Following the transaction, the director now directly owns 16,708 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $1,276,825.36. The trade was a 17.97 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through the SEC website. Also, CAO W. Christopher Durborow sold 5,170 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, December 6th. The shares were sold at an average price of $80.38, for a total transaction of $415,564.60. Following the completion of the sale, the chief accounting officer now directly owns 44,306 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $3,561,316.28. This trade represents a 10.45 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 365,170 shares of company stock worth $27,178,746 in the last 90 days. Insiders own 10.20% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several equities analysts have recently issued reports on GFF shares. Robert W. Baird boosted their price objective on Griffon from $92.00 to $100.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Wednesday, November 20th. StockNews.com raised shares of Griffon from a “buy” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Saturday, November 23rd. Finally, Stephens increased their price target on shares of Griffon from $85.00 to $100.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Thursday, November 14th.

Griffon announced that its board has approved a stock repurchase plan on Wednesday, November 13th that allows the company to repurchase $400.00 million in outstanding shares. This repurchase authorization allows the conglomerate to repurchase up to 10.1% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares repurchase plans are usually an indication that the company’s board believes its shares are undervalued.

About Griffon

Griffon Corporation, through its subsidiaries, provides consumer and professional, and home and building products in the United States, Europe, Canada, Australia, and internationally. The company operates through two segments: Home and Building Products, and Consumer and Professional Products. The Home and Building Products segment manufactures and markets residential and commercial sectional garage doors, rolling steel service doors, fire doors, shutters, steel security grilles, and room dividers for the use in commercial construction and repair, and home remodeling applications.