Crown Castle Inc. to Issue Quarterly Dividend of $1.57 (NYSE:CCI)

Crown Castle Inc. (NYSE:CCI) declared a quarterly dividend on Wednesday, May 22nd, RTT News reports. Stockholders of record on Friday, June 14th will be paid a dividend of 1.565 per share by the real estate investment trust on Friday, June 28th. This represents a $6.26 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 6.25%.

Crown Castle has increased its dividend payment by an average of 8.3% annually over the last three years and has increased its dividend annually for the last 9 consecutive years. Crown Castle has a dividend payout ratio of 244.5% indicating that the company cannot currently cover its dividend with earnings alone and is relying on its balance sheet to cover its dividend payments. Research analysts expect Crown Castle to earn $6.38 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $6.26 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 98.1%.

Crown Castle Stock Performance

Shares of Crown Castle stock traded down $0.53 on Wednesday, hitting $100.22. 1,974,512 shares of the company’s stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 2,878,840. The company has a 50-day simple moving average of $99.91 and a 200-day simple moving average of $106.30. The stock has a market capitalization of $43.55 billion, a PE ratio of 31.33, a PEG ratio of 2.68 and a beta of 0.76. Crown Castle has a 1 year low of $84.72 and a 1 year high of $119.50. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 3.73, a quick ratio of 0.42 and a current ratio of 0.42.

Crown Castle (NYSE:CCI) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, April 17th. The real estate investment trust reported $0.71 EPS for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $1.63 by ($0.92). The firm had revenue of $1.64 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.63 billion. Crown Castle had a net margin of 20.32% and a return on equity of 21.30%. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was down 7.4% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business earned $1.91 earnings per share. As a group, equities analysts anticipate that Crown Castle will post 6.58 EPS for the current year.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of brokerages have issued reports on CCI. BMO Capital Markets reduced their price target on shares of Crown Castle from $110.00 to $105.00 and set a “market perform” rating on the stock in a report on Thursday, April 18th. Barclays lifted their price target on shares of Crown Castle from $111.00 to $112.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a report on Tuesday, April 23rd. Argus downgraded shares of Crown Castle from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Friday, April 19th. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft reduced their price target on shares of Crown Castle from $110.00 to $109.00 and set a “hold” rating on the stock in a report on Monday, April 22nd. Finally, Royal Bank of Canada dropped their price objective on shares of Crown Castle from $109.00 to $100.00 and set a “sector perform” rating for the company in a research note on Tuesday, May 7th. Eleven analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and four have given a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, Crown Castle has an average rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $112.64.

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.