Griffon Co. (GFF) to Issue Quarterly Dividend of $0.18 on December 18th

Griffon Co. (NYSE:GFF) declared a quarterly dividend on Wednesday, November 13th,RTT News reports. Stockholders of record on Monday, November 25th will be paid a dividend of 0.18 per share by the conglomerate on Wednesday, December 18th. This represents a $0.72 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.93%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Monday, November 25th. This is a positive change from Griffon’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.15.

Griffon has raised its dividend payment by an average of 17.9% per year over the last three years and has raised its dividend every year for the last 11 years. Griffon has a payout ratio of 10.7% indicating that its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Equities analysts expect Griffon to earn $6.53 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $0.60 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 9.2%.

Griffon Price Performance

Shares of GFF stock opened at $77.40 on Friday. The firm’s 50 day moving average price is $67.31 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $66.78. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 6.74, a quick ratio of 1.39 and a current ratio of 2.66. Griffon has a 52-week low of $44.03 and a 52-week high of $80.85. The stock has a market cap of $3.81 billion, a PE ratio of 18.30 and a beta of 1.31.

Insider Buying and Selling at Griffon

In other news, CFO Brian G. Harris sold 13,314 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, September 13th. The stock was sold at an average price of $66.10, for a total value of $880,055.40. Following the completion of the sale, the chief financial officer now owns 199,748 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $13,203,342.80. This represents a 6.25 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, Director Kevin F. Sullivan sold 12,447 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Thursday, August 22nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $65.00, for a total transaction of $809,055.00. Following the transaction, the director now owns 50,390 shares in the company, valued at approximately $3,275,350. The trade was a 19.81 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last three months, insiders have sold 578,082 shares of company stock worth $40,777,353. Insiders own 16.10% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of brokerages recently issued reports on GFF. Robert W. Baird boosted their price objective on shares of Griffon from $84.00 to $92.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Monday, October 21st. StockNews.com lowered Griffon from a “strong-buy” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday. Finally, Stephens increased their price objective on shares of Griffon from $85.00 to $100.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Thursday. Four equities research analysts have rated the stock with a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Buy” and a consensus price target of $87.25.

Griffon announced that its Board of Directors has approved a share repurchase program on Wednesday, November 13th that authorizes the company to buyback $400.00 million in shares. This buyback authorization authorizes the conglomerate to repurchase up to 10.1% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares buyback programs are usually an indication that the company’s leadership believes its shares are undervalued.

Griffon Company Profile

Griffon Corporation, through its subsidiaries, provides consumer and professional, and home and building products in the United States, Europe, Canada, Australia, and internationally. The company operates through two segments: Home and Building Products, and Consumer and Professional Products. The Home and Building Products segment manufactures and markets residential and commercial sectional garage doors, rolling steel service doors, fire doors, shutters, steel security grilles, and room dividers for the use in commercial construction and repair, and home remodeling applications.