CGI Inc. to Issue Quarterly Dividend of $0.10 (NYSE:GIB)

CGI Inc. (NYSE:GIB) (TSE:GIB.A) announced a quarterly dividend on Thursday, January 30th,Wall Street Journal reports. Shareholders of record on Friday, February 14th will be paid a dividend of 0.1039 per share by the technology company on Friday, March 21st. This represents a $0.42 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.34%. The ex-dividend date is Friday, February 14th.

CGI has a payout ratio of 6.6% indicating that its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Analysts expect CGI to earn $6.28 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $0.42 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 6.7%.

CGI Stock Performance

Shares of GIB stock opened at $120.85 on Wednesday. CGI has a 12-month low of $96.92 and a 12-month high of $121.55. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.28, a current ratio of 1.31 and a quick ratio of 1.04. The firm has a market capitalization of $27.40 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 21.85, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.62 and a beta of 0.94. The business has a 50 day simple moving average of $111.90 and a 200 day simple moving average of $111.98.

CGI (NYSE:GIB) (TSE:GIB.A) last released its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, January 29th. The technology company reported $1.41 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, hitting the consensus estimate of $1.41. CGI had a return on equity of 19.32% and a net margin of 11.72%. On average, equities research analysts anticipate that CGI will post 5.79 EPS for the current year.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several equities analysts have commented on GIB shares. UBS Group raised their target price on shares of CGI from $118.00 to $122.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Monday, February 3rd. Royal Bank of Canada reissued an “outperform” rating and set a $178.00 target price on shares of CGI in a report on Monday, January 6th. CIBC raised CGI from a “neutral” rating to an “outperformer” rating and increased their price target for the company from $155.00 to $178.00 in a research note on Tuesday, October 15th. Jefferies Financial Group lowered their price target on CGI from $140.00 to $135.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research report on Tuesday, January 21st. Finally, Cibc World Mkts raised CGI from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Tuesday, October 15th. Two analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, three have assigned a buy rating and two have assigned a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has an average rating of “Buy” and a consensus price target of $153.25.

About CGI

CGI Inc, together with its subsidiaries, provides information technology (IT) and business process services. Its services include the business and strategic IT consulting, systems integration, and software solutions. The company also provides application development, modernization and maintenance, holistic enterprise digitization, automation, hybrid and cloud management, and business process services; intellectual property-based solutions; business consulting; managed IT services; and IT infrastructure services.