Matson, Inc. (MATX) to Issue Quarterly Dividend of $0.34 on March 6th

Matson, Inc. (NYSE:MATX) announced a quarterly dividend on Thursday, January 23rd,RTT News reports. Shareholders of record on Thursday, February 6th will be given a dividend of 0.34 per share by the shipping company on Thursday, March 6th. This represents a $1.36 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.00%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, February 6th.

Matson has raised its dividend payment by an average of 7.6% annually over the last three years and has raised its dividend every year for the last 12 years. Matson has a dividend payout ratio of 14.2% indicating that its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Analysts expect Matson to earn $9.80 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $1.36 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 13.9%.

Matson Stock Down 1.5 %

Shares of MATX opened at $136.44 on Friday. Matson has a 12-month low of $100.50 and a 12-month high of $169.12. The company’s 50-day moving average price is $143.80 and its 200 day moving average price is $139.06. The firm has a market cap of $4.53 billion, a P/E ratio of 11.35 and a beta of 1.07. The company has a current ratio of 1.13, a quick ratio of 1.13 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.14.

Matson (NYSE:MATX) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, October 30th. The shipping company reported $5.89 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $4.98 by $0.91. Matson had a net margin of 12.37% and a return on equity of 16.89%. The company had revenue of $962.00 million during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $965.73 million. During the same quarter last year, the company posted $3.40 EPS. The firm’s revenue was up 16.3% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, sell-side analysts forecast that Matson will post 13.19 earnings per share for the current year.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In related news, EVP Rusty K. Rolfe sold 3,000 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, November 13th. The shares were sold at an average price of $165.97, for a total value of $497,910.00. Following the sale, the executive vice president now directly owns 21,871 shares in the company, valued at $3,629,929.87. The trade was a 12.06 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, EVP Peter T. Heilmann sold 5,404 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, November 6th. The stock was sold at an average price of $162.36, for a total transaction of $877,393.44. Following the transaction, the executive vice president now directly owns 32,952 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $5,350,086.72. This trade represents a 14.09 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last 90 days, insiders have sold 9,646 shares of company stock worth $1,578,768. Company insiders own 2.32% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several brokerages have recently weighed in on MATX. Wolfe Research downgraded shares of Matson from an “outperform” rating to a “peer perform” rating in a research note on Monday, November 18th. Stephens reissued an “overweight” rating and issued a $165.00 price objective on shares of Matson in a research note on Thursday, January 2nd.

About Matson

Matson, Inc, together with its subsidiaries, engages in the provision of ocean transportation and logistics services. It operates through two segments, Ocean Transportation and Logistics. The Ocean Transportation segment offers ocean freight transportation services to the domestic non-contiguous economies of Hawaii, Japan, Alaska, and Guam, as well as to other island economies in Micronesia.