Ingredion Incorporated to Issue Quarterly Dividend of $0.80 (NYSE:INGR)

Ingredion Incorporated (NYSE:INGR) declared a quarterly dividend on Tuesday, December 17th,Wall Street Journal reports. Stockholders of record on Thursday, January 2nd will be given a dividend of 0.80 per share on Tuesday, January 21st. This represents a $3.20 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 2.26%. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, January 2nd.

Ingredion has raised its dividend payment by an average of 5.5% annually over the last three years and has raised its dividend every year for the last 14 years. Ingredion has a payout ratio of 28.8% meaning its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Equities analysts expect Ingredion to earn $11.16 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $3.20 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 28.7%.

Ingredion Trading Down 0.2 %

Shares of INGR opened at $141.84 on Thursday. The company has a market capitalization of $9.24 billion, a PE ratio of 13.84, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.24 and a beta of 0.74. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.44, a quick ratio of 1.69 and a current ratio of 2.67. Ingredion has a fifty-two week low of $106.03 and a fifty-two week high of $155.44. The stock has a fifty day moving average of $142.09 and a two-hundred day moving average of $131.05.

Ingredion (NYSE:INGR) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, November 5th. The company reported $3.05 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.58 by $0.47. Ingredion had a return on equity of 17.75% and a net margin of 9.05%. The company had revenue of $1.87 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $1.94 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business earned $2.33 EPS. The firm’s revenue was down 8.0% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, analysts forecast that Ingredion will post 10.59 EPS for the current year.

Insider Activity at Ingredion

In related news, CFO James D. Gray sold 54,869 shares of Ingredion stock in a transaction on Friday, November 29th. The shares were sold at an average price of $146.76, for a total value of $8,052,574.44. Following the completion of the sale, the chief financial officer now owns 12,795 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,877,794.20. The trade was a 81.09 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this link. Also, SVP Larry Fernandes sold 4,700 shares of the stock in a transaction on Wednesday, November 6th. The shares were sold at an average price of $153.41, for a total transaction of $721,027.00. Following the transaction, the senior vice president now owns 29,034 shares in the company, valued at $4,454,105.94. This trade represents a 13.93 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last three months, insiders sold 66,198 shares of company stock valued at $9,702,461. Corporate insiders own 1.80% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of equities analysts have recently commented on INGR shares. Oppenheimer raised their price objective on Ingredion from $147.00 to $178.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Wednesday, November 6th. BMO Capital Markets lifted their price target on shares of Ingredion from $128.00 to $147.00 and gave the company a “market perform” rating in a research report on Wednesday, November 6th. Barclays boosted their price objective on shares of Ingredion from $145.00 to $168.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research note on Wednesday, November 6th. UBS Group raised their target price on shares of Ingredion from $165.00 to $173.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, November 15th. Finally, Stephens raised shares of Ingredion to a “hold” rating in a research report on Monday, December 2nd. Two investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and five have issued a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $155.17.

Ingredion Company Profile

Ingredion Incorporated, together with its subsidiaries, manufactures and sells sweeteners, starches, nutrition ingredients, and biomaterial solutions derived from wet milling and processing corn, and other starch-based materials to a range of industries in North America, South America, the Asia Pacific, Europe, the Middle East, and Africa.