Guess?, Inc. Declares Quarterly Dividend of $0.30 (NYSE:GES)

Guess?, Inc. (NYSE:GES) declared a quarterly dividend on Friday, April 4th, Wall Street Journal reports. Shareholders of record on Wednesday, April 16th will be given a dividend of 0.30 per share on Friday, May 2nd. This represents a $1.20 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 11.00%. The ex-dividend date is Wednesday, April 16th.

Guess? has increased its dividend by an average of 28.7% annually over the last three years. Guess? has a dividend payout ratio of 122.4% indicating that the company cannot currently cover its dividend with earnings alone and is relying on its balance sheet to cover its dividend payments. Research analysts expect Guess? to earn $2.38 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $1.20 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 50.4%.

Guess? Price Performance

Shares of GES traded up $0.87 on Friday, hitting $10.91. The company’s stock had a trading volume of 3,790,439 shares, compared to its average volume of 1,245,550. The company has a 50 day moving average price of $11.65 and a 200 day moving average price of $14.91. Guess? has a fifty-two week low of $9.24 and a fifty-two week high of $32.08. The company has a market capitalization of $561.14 million, a PE ratio of 9.16 and a beta of 1.43. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.18, a current ratio of 1.54 and a quick ratio of 0.74.

Guess? (NYSE:GES) last announced its earnings results on Thursday, April 3rd. The company reported $1.48 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $1.41 by $0.07. Guess? had a return on equity of 23.29% and a net margin of 3.19%. The company had revenue of $932.25 million for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $916.75 million. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business earned $2.01 earnings per share. The business’s revenue for the quarter was up 4.6% on a year-over-year basis. On average, research analysts anticipate that Guess? will post 1.92 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several analysts have weighed in on GES shares. Telsey Advisory Group reissued a “market perform” rating and set a $13.00 price objective on shares of Guess? in a report on Friday. UBS Group cut their price objective on shares of Guess? from $15.00 to $12.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a report on Tuesday, March 11th.

Guess? declared that its Board of Directors has initiated a stock repurchase plan on Tuesday, March 25th that permits the company to buyback $200.00 million in outstanding shares. This buyback authorization permits the company to reacquire up to 38.5% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares buyback plans are usually a sign that the company’s leadership believes its stock is undervalued.

About Guess?

Guess?, Inc designs, markets, distributes, and licenses lifestyle collections of apparel and accessories for men, women, and children. It operates through five segments: Americas Retail, Americas Wholesale, Europe, Asia, and Licensing. The company’s clothing collection includes jeans, pants, skirts, dresses, shorts, blouses, shirts, jackets, activewear, knitwear, and intimate apparel.