Cabot Co. (CBT) to Distribute Quarterly Dividend of $0.43 on March 14th

Cabot Co. (NYSE:CBT) declared a quarterly dividend on Friday, January 10th,RTT News reports. Shareholders 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 raised its dividend payment by an average of 6.0% annually over the last three years and has increased its dividend every year for the last 13 years. Cabot has a payout ratio of 20.4% meaning its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Equities research 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 %

Cabot stock opened at $86.65 on Friday. Cabot has a 1 year low of $70.63 and a 1 year high of $117.46. The firm’s 50-day moving average is $102.39 and its 200-day moving average is $102.38. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.68, a quick ratio of 1.36 and a current ratio of 2.08. The company has a market cap of $4.71 billion, a P/E ratio of 12.86, a PEG ratio of 0.90 and a beta of 1.21.

Cabot (NYSE:CBT) last issued its earnings results on Monday, November 4th. The specialty chemicals company reported $1.80 EPS for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.81 by ($0.01). The company had revenue of $1 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.01 billion. Cabot had a net margin of 9.51% and a return on equity of 26.60%. The business’s revenue was up 3.7% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm earned $1.65 earnings per share. On average, equities analysts expect that Cabot will post 7.67 earnings per share for the current year.

Cabot declared that its Board of Directors has initiated a share repurchase program 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. Shares repurchase programs are generally a sign that the company’s board of directors believes its stock is undervalued.

Insider Transactions at Cabot

In other Cabot news, EVP Hobart Kalkstein sold 34,759 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Monday, November 11th. The shares were sold at an average price of $115.23, for a total transaction of $4,005,279.57. Following the sale, the executive vice president now directly owns 50,627 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $5,833,749.21. The trade was a 40.71 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this hyperlink. Also, CAO Lisa M. Dumont sold 865 shares of the stock in a transaction on Wednesday, November 13th. The shares were sold at an average price of $111.74, for a total value of $96,655.10. Following the completion of the sale, the chief accounting officer now owns 9,742 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $1,088,571.08. The trade was a 8.15 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 50,190 shares of company stock valued at $5,751,534 in the last three months. 3.07% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of brokerages have recently commented on CBT. Mizuho lowered their price target on Cabot from $122.00 to $110.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a report on Tuesday, January 7th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. cut shares of Cabot from a “neutral” rating to an “underweight” rating and set a $105.00 target price on the stock. in a research note on Monday, November 11th. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, two have issued a hold rating and two have given a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $102.00.

Cabot Company Profile

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.