Ingredion Incorporated (NYSE:INGR) to Issue $0.80 Quarterly Dividend

Ingredion Incorporated (NYSE:INGR) announced a quarterly dividend on Wednesday, March 12th, RTT News reports. Shareholders of record on Tuesday, April 1st will be given a dividend of 0.80 per share on Tuesday, April 22nd. This represents a $3.20 annualized dividend and a yield of 2.45%.

Ingredion has raised its dividend by an average of 7.0% annually over the last three years and has increased its dividend every year for the last 14 years. Ingredion has a payout ratio of 27.8% meaning its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Analysts expect Ingredion to earn $11.82 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 27.1%.

Ingredion Trading Down 2.0 %

INGR traded down $2.63 on Wednesday, hitting $130.39. The company had a trading volume of 896,059 shares, compared to its average volume of 605,743. The firm has a market cap of $8.37 billion, a P/E ratio of 13.43, a PEG ratio of 1.03 and a beta of 0.75. Ingredion has a 1 year low of $109.51 and a 1 year high of $155.44. The company’s fifty day moving average price is $131.97 and its 200 day moving average price is $136.64. The company has a current ratio of 2.62, a quick ratio of 1.69 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.47.

Ingredion (NYSE:INGR) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, February 4th. The company reported $2.63 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.54 by $0.09. The firm had revenue of $1.80 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.82 billion. Ingredion had a net margin of 8.71% and a return on equity of 18.62%. Ingredion’s revenue was down 6.3% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the firm earned $1.65 EPS. As a group, equities analysts expect that Ingredion will post 11.14 earnings per share for the current year.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several equities analysts have weighed in on INGR shares. BMO Capital Markets dropped their target price on Ingredion from $147.00 to $133.00 and set a “market perform” rating for the company in a research report on Wednesday, February 5th. Stephens dropped their target price on Ingredion from $155.00 to $150.00 and set an “equal weight” rating for the company in a research report on Wednesday, February 5th. StockNews.com downgraded Ingredion from a “strong-buy” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report on Thursday, February 6th. UBS Group increased their price objective on Ingredion from $165.00 to $173.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, November 15th. Finally, Oppenheimer lowered their target price on Ingredion from $178.00 to $167.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research note on Wednesday, February 5th. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and four have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $158.20.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other Ingredion news, CEO James P. Zallie sold 10,815 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, February 19th. The shares were sold at an average price of $125.88, for a total transaction of $1,361,392.20. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 34,127 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $4,295,906.76. This trade represents a 24.06 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this link. Insiders own 1.80% of the company’s stock.

Ingredion Company Profile

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.