Flowers Foods, Inc. (NYSE:FLO) Announces Quarterly Dividend of $0.24

Flowers Foods, Inc. (NYSE:FLO) announced a quarterly dividend on Friday, February 14th,RTT News reports. Shareholders of record on Friday, February 28th will be paid a dividend of 0.24 per share on Friday, March 14th. This represents a $0.96 annualized dividend and a yield of 5.18%.

Flowers Foods has increased its dividend by an average of 4.6% per year over the last three years and has increased its dividend every year for the last 23 years. Flowers Foods has a dividend payout ratio of 76.8% meaning its dividend is currently covered by earnings, but may not be in the future if the company’s earnings tumble. Equities research analysts expect Flowers Foods to earn $1.30 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $0.96 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 73.8%.

Flowers Foods Stock Performance

Flowers Foods stock opened at $18.53 on Friday. Flowers Foods has a 52-week low of $18.34 and a 52-week high of $26.12. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.75, a current ratio of 1.24 and a quick ratio of 0.95. The stock has a fifty day moving average price of $20.05 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $21.77. The firm has a market capitalization of $3.90 billion, a P/E ratio of 16.25, a P/E/G ratio of 3.74 and a beta of 0.38.

Flowers Foods (NYSE:FLO) last posted its earnings results on Friday, February 7th. The company reported $0.22 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.21 by $0.01. Flowers Foods had a net margin of 4.70% and a return on equity of 19.41%. During the same period in the previous year, the company earned $0.20 earnings per share. As a group, analysts anticipate that Flowers Foods will post 1.27 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several research firms have weighed in on FLO. DA Davidson lowered their price objective on shares of Flowers Foods from $24.00 to $21.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a research report on Monday, February 10th. StockNews.com lowered shares of Flowers Foods from a “strong-buy” rating to a “buy” rating in a report on Friday, December 20th. Finally, Truist Financial reduced their price objective on Flowers Foods from $23.00 to $20.00 and set a “hold” rating on the stock in a report on Monday, February 10th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, three have assigned a hold rating and one has issued a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $21.00.

Flowers Foods Company Profile

Flowers Foods, Inc produces and markets packaged bakery food products in the United States. Its principal products include fresh breads, buns, rolls, snack items, bagels, English muffins, and tortillas, as well as frozen breads and rolls under the Nature's Own, Dave's Killer Bread, Wonder, Canyon Bakehouse, Mrs.