General Mills, Inc. (NYSE:GIS) Declares $0.60 Quarterly Dividend

General Mills, Inc. (NYSE:GIS) announced a quarterly dividend on Monday, November 18th,Wall Street Journal reports. Investors of record on Friday, January 10th will be given a dividend of 0.60 per share on Monday, February 3rd. This represents a $2.40 annualized dividend and a yield of 3.94%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, January 10th.

General Mills has increased its dividend by an average of 5.3% per year over the last three years. General Mills has a dividend payout ratio of 49.8% meaning its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Equities research analysts expect General Mills to earn $4.65 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $2.40 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 51.6%.

General Mills Stock Performance

GIS stock opened at $60.88 on Wednesday. The company has a market capitalization of $33.56 billion, a P/E ratio of 14.50, a PEG ratio of 3.47 and a beta of 0.11. The company has a 50-day simple moving average of $65.00 and a 200 day simple moving average of $67.84. General Mills has a fifty-two week low of $60.82 and a fifty-two week high of $75.90. The company has a quick ratio of 0.39, a current ratio of 0.66 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.20.

General Mills (NYSE:GIS) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, December 18th. The company reported $1.40 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $1.22 by $0.18. General Mills had a net margin of 12.14% and a return on equity of 26.85%. The firm had revenue of $5.24 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $5.14 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the business earned $1.25 earnings per share. General Mills’s revenue for the quarter was up 2.7% compared to the same quarter last year. Sell-side analysts predict that General Mills will post 4.5 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Insider Activity at General Mills

In other General Mills news, CAO Mark A. Pallot sold 8,083 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, October 15th. The stock was sold at an average price of $71.28, for a total transaction of $576,156.24. Following the completion of the sale, the chief accounting officer now owns 14,813 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $1,055,870.64. This represents a 35.30 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. Also, CEO Jeffrey L. Harmening sold 46,500 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, October 23rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $68.61, for a total value of $3,190,365.00. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 355,328 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $24,379,054.08. The trade was a 11.57 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last quarter, insiders sold 56,624 shares of company stock valued at $3,897,326. 0.26% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

GIS has been the topic of several research reports. Royal Bank of Canada reiterated a “sector perform” rating and issued a $70.00 price target on shares of General Mills in a research report on Thursday, December 19th. Stifel Nicolaus dropped their price target on shares of General Mills from $82.00 to $78.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday, December 19th. Citigroup cut their price objective on General Mills from $71.00 to $67.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a report on Thursday, December 19th. Barclays cut their price objective on General Mills from $74.00 to $68.00 and set an “equal weight” rating on the stock in a report on Friday, December 20th. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. boosted their price objective on General Mills from $63.00 to $67.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a report on Monday, October 14th. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, twelve have issued a hold rating and four have assigned a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $71.31.

General Mills Company Profile

General Mills, Inc manufactures and markets branded consumer foods worldwide. The company operates through four segments: North America Retail; International; Pet; and North America Foodservice. It offers grain, ready-to-eat cereals, refrigerated yogurt, soup, meal kits, refrigerated and frozen dough products, dessert and baking mixes, bakery flour, frozen pizza and pizza snacks, snack bars, fruit and savory snacks, ice cream and frozen desserts, unbaked and fully baked frozen dough products, frozen hot snacks, ethnic meals, side dish mixes, frozen breakfast and entrees, nutrition bars, and frozen and shelf-stable vegetables.