West Pharmaceutical Services, Inc. (NYSE:WST) Plans Quarterly Dividend of $0.21

West Pharmaceutical Services, Inc. (NYSE:WST) announced a quarterly dividend on Thursday, February 20th, RTT News reports. Shareholders of record on Wednesday, April 30th will be given a dividend of 0.21 per share by the medical instruments supplier on Wednesday, May 7th. This represents a $0.84 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.41%.

West Pharmaceutical Services has decreased its dividend payment by an average of 4.5% per year over the last three years. West Pharmaceutical Services has a dividend payout ratio of 9.6% indicating that its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Equities analysts expect West Pharmaceutical Services to earn $7.77 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $0.84 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 10.8%.

West Pharmaceutical Services Trading Up 0.5 %

WST stock traded up $0.94 during trading on Thursday, reaching $203.43. 1,801,192 shares of the stock traded hands, compared to its average volume of 902,128. The business’s 50 day moving average price is $321.24 and its 200-day moving average price is $311.96. West Pharmaceutical Services has a 52-week low of $197.01 and a 52-week high of $400.88. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.07, a current ratio of 3.00 and a quick ratio of 2.23. The firm has a market capitalization of $14.73 billion, a PE ratio of 30.41, a P/E/G ratio of 10.09 and a beta of 1.01.

West Pharmaceutical Services (NYSE:WST) last released its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, February 13th. The medical instruments supplier reported $1.82 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.75 by $0.07. West Pharmaceutical Services had a return on equity of 18.62% and a net margin of 17.03%. The company had revenue of $748.80 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $739.59 million. As a group, sell-side analysts forecast that West Pharmaceutical Services will post 6.58 earnings per share for the current year.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

WST has been the subject of a number of analyst reports. Wolfe Research initiated coverage on shares of West Pharmaceutical Services in a research report on Friday, December 13th. They issued a “peer perform” rating for the company. StockNews.com lowered West Pharmaceutical Services from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Wednesday. Citigroup began coverage on shares of West Pharmaceutical Services in a research report on Wednesday, January 8th. They issued a “buy” rating and a $400.00 target price for the company. Bank of America boosted their target price on shares of West Pharmaceutical Services from $350.00 to $355.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, December 13th. Finally, KeyCorp decreased their target price on West Pharmaceutical Services from $470.00 to $325.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a research report on Friday, February 14th. Two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and five have assigned a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $344.00.

About West Pharmaceutical Services

West Pharmaceutical Services, Inc designs, manufactures, and sells containment and delivery systems for injectable drugs and healthcare products in the Americas, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and the Asia Pacific. It operates in two segments, Proprietary Products and Contract-Manufactured Products.