Crown Castle Inc. (CCI) To Go Ex-Dividend on June 13th

Crown Castle Inc. (NYSE:CCI) announced a quarterly dividend on Wednesday, May 21st, RTT News reports. Investors of record on Friday, June 13th will be given a dividend of 1.0625 per share by the real estate investment trust on Monday, June 30th. This represents a $4.25 annualized dividend and a yield of 4.26%. The ex-dividend date is Friday, June 13th.

Crown Castle has a dividend payout ratio of 151.2% 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 Crown Castle to earn $6.58 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $4.25 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 64.6%.

Crown Castle Stock Performance

CCI opened at $99.81 on Wednesday. The company has a quick ratio of 0.54, a current ratio of 0.54 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 4.43. The firm has a market cap of $43.46 billion, a PE ratio of 35.39 and a beta of 0.88. The business has a fifty day simple moving average of $100.93 and a 200-day simple moving average of $97.02. Crown Castle has a fifty-two week low of $84.20 and a fifty-two week high of $120.92.

Crown Castle (NYSE:CCI) last released its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, April 30th. The real estate investment trust reported $1.10 earnings per share for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.72 by ($0.62). The company had revenue of $1.06 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.04 billion. Crown Castle had a net margin of 18.59% and a return on equity of 20.98%. The company’s revenue for the quarter was down 4.8% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter last year, the business earned $1.72 EPS. As a group, equities analysts predict that Crown Castle will post 6.67 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, CEO Daniel K. Schlanger sold 20,000 shares of Crown Castle stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, May 2nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $106.38, for a total value of $2,127,600.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 110,571 shares in the company, valued at approximately $11,762,542.98. The trade was a 15.32% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this link. Also, VP Robert Sean Collins sold 3,600 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, May 2nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $106.72, for a total value of $384,192.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the vice president now directly owns 6,465 shares in the company, valued at $689,944.80. The trade was a 35.77% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 31,600 shares of company stock worth $3,362,752 over the last three months. 0.10% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Crown Castle

A hedge fund recently raised its stake in Crown Castle stock. Empowered Funds LLC increased its stake in shares of Crown Castle Inc. (NYSE:CCI) by 7.5% during the 1st quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 16,444 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock after buying an additional 1,150 shares during the period. Empowered Funds LLC’s holdings in Crown Castle were worth $1,714,000 at the end of the most recent quarter. 90.77% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several research analysts recently weighed in on CCI shares. Raymond James raised Crown Castle from an “outperform” rating to a “strong-buy” rating and dropped their price target for the company from $128.00 to $122.00 in a research report on Friday, March 14th. Argus upgraded shares of Crown Castle to a “hold” rating in a research report on Friday, March 21st. Royal Bank of Canada lifted their price target on Crown Castle from $107.00 to $112.00 and gave the company a “sector perform” rating in a report on Friday, May 2nd. KeyCorp boosted their target price on shares of Crown Castle from $120.00 to $122.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Thursday, May 1st. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. decreased their price objective on shares of Crown Castle from $121.00 to $115.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a report on Monday, March 17th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, ten have given a hold rating, seven have given a buy rating and three have assigned a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, the company has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $112.71.

Crown Castle Company Profile

Crown Castle owns, operates and leases more than 40,000 cell towers and approximately 90,000 route miles of fiber supporting small cells and fiber solutions across every major U.S. market. This nationwide portfolio of communications infrastructure connects cities and communities to essential data, technology and wireless service – bringing information, ideas and innovations to the people and businesses that need them.