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

Guess?, Inc. (NYSE:GES) announced a quarterly dividend on Friday, April 4th, Wall Street Journal reports. Stockholders 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 dividend yield of 11.00%. The ex-dividend date is Wednesday, April 16th.

Guess? has raised its dividend payment by an average of 28.7% annually over the last three years. Guess? has a 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. 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

NYSE GES opened at $10.91 on Friday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.18, a quick ratio of 0.74 and a current ratio of 1.54. The stock has a market cap of $561.14 million, a price-to-earnings ratio of 9.16 and a beta of 1.43. The business has a 50 day simple moving average of $11.60 and a 200 day simple moving average of $14.85. Guess? has a 52-week low of $9.24 and a 52-week high of $31.04.

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

Guess? announced that its board has approved a stock buyback plan on Tuesday, March 25th that permits the company to repurchase $200.00 million in outstanding shares. This repurchase authorization permits the company to buy up to 38.5% of its stock through open market purchases. Stock repurchase plans are often a sign that the company’s board believes its stock is undervalued.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of analysts have recently issued reports on the stock. Telsey Advisory Group reiterated a “market perform” rating and issued a $13.00 price objective on shares of Guess? in a report on Friday. UBS Group cut their price target on shares of Guess? from $15.00 to $12.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a research report on Tuesday, March 11th.

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.