Cabot Co. to Issue Quarterly Dividend of $0.43 (NYSE:CBT)

Cabot Co. (NYSE:CBT) announced a quarterly dividend on Friday, January 10th,RTT News reports. Investors of record on Friday, February 28th will be given a dividend of 0.43 per share by the specialty chemicals company on Friday, March 14th. This represents a $1.72 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.98%.

Cabot has increased its dividend by an average of 6.0% per year over the last three years and has raised its dividend every year for the last 13 years. Cabot has a payout ratio of 20.4% indicating that its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Analysts expect Cabot to earn $8.42 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $1.72 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 20.4%.

Cabot Trading Down 1.2 %

Shares of Cabot stock traded down $1.05 during trading on Friday, hitting $86.65. 366,620 shares of the company were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 297,770. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.68, a current ratio of 2.08 and a quick ratio of 1.36. The firm has a market capitalization of $4.71 billion, a P/E ratio of 12.86, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 0.90 and a beta of 1.21. The firm’s fifty day moving average price is $102.83 and its 200 day moving average price is $102.39. Cabot has a 1-year low of $70.63 and a 1-year high of $117.46.

Cabot (NYSE:CBT) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Monday, November 4th. The specialty chemicals company reported $1.80 EPS for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $1.81 by ($0.01). Cabot had a return on equity of 26.60% and a net margin of 9.51%. The business had revenue of $1 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.01 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the business posted $1.65 EPS. The business’s quarterly revenue was up 3.7% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, sell-side analysts expect that Cabot will post 7.67 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Cabot declared that its Board of Directors has initiated a stock buyback plan on Tuesday, December 3rd that allows the company to repurchase 10,000,000 shares. This repurchase authorization allows the specialty chemicals company to repurchase shares of its stock through open market purchases. Stock repurchase plans are generally a sign that the company’s board believes its shares are undervalued.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

CBT has been the topic of several research analyst reports. Mizuho dropped their target price on shares of Cabot from $122.00 to $110.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a report on Tuesday. JPMorgan Chase & Co. cut shares of Cabot from a “neutral” rating to an “underweight” rating and set a $105.00 price objective on the stock. in a research report on Monday, November 11th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, two have assigned a hold rating and two have issued a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the company presently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $102.00.

Insider Activity

In other news, EVP Jeff Ji Zhu sold 14,566 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, November 13th. The shares were sold at an average price of $113.25, for a total value of $1,649,599.50. Following the transaction, the executive vice president now directly owns 69,449 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $7,865,099.25. This represents a 17.34 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this link. Also, CAO Lisa M. Dumont sold 865 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, November 13th. The stock was sold at an average price of $111.74, for a total transaction of $96,655.10. Following the sale, the chief accounting officer now owns 9,742 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $1,088,571.08. This trade represents a 8.15 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 50,190 shares of company stock worth $5,751,534 in the last quarter. Corporate insiders own 3.07% of the company’s stock.

About Cabot

Cabot Corporation operates as a specialty chemicals and performance materials company. The company operates through two segments, Reinforcement Materials and Performance Chemicals. It offers reinforcing carbons that are used in tires as a rubber reinforcing agent and performance additive, as well as in industrial products, such as hoses, belts, extruded profiles, and molded goods; and engineered elastomer composites solutions.