Jefferies Financial Group Inc. (NYSE:JEF) Declares Dividend Increase – $0.40 Per Share

Jefferies Financial Group Inc. (NYSE:JEF) declared a quarterly dividend on Wednesday, January 8th,RTT News reports. Investors of record on Friday, February 14th will be paid a dividend of 0.40 per share by the financial services provider on Thursday, February 27th. This represents a $1.60 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 2.00%. This is a boost from Jefferies Financial Group’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.35.

Jefferies Financial Group has raised its dividend payment by an average of 26.0% per year over the last three years. Jefferies Financial Group has a payout ratio of 23.5% indicating that its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Equities analysts expect Jefferies Financial Group to earn $4.79 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $1.40 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 29.2%.

Jefferies Financial Group Price Performance

Shares of JEF stock opened at $80.11 on Thursday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.53, a quick ratio of 1.03 and a current ratio of 1.03. The firm has a market cap of $16.46 billion, a P/E ratio of 34.24 and a beta of 1.35. The business’s 50 day moving average price is $76.48 and its 200-day moving average price is $64.47. Jefferies Financial Group has a fifty-two week low of $38.77 and a fifty-two week high of $82.68.

Jefferies Financial Group (NYSE:JEF) last announced its earnings results on Wednesday, January 8th. The financial services provider reported $0.91 earnings per share for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.97 by ($0.06). The company had revenue of $1.96 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.83 billion. Jefferies Financial Group had a net margin of 9.27% and a return on equity of 6.40%. The company’s revenue for the quarter was up 63.4% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the firm posted $0.30 EPS. On average, equities research analysts anticipate that Jefferies Financial Group will post 3.13 earnings per share for the current year.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several equities analysts have recently issued reports on JEF shares. Oppenheimer lowered their target price on shares of Jefferies Financial Group from $82.00 to $81.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a report on Friday, January 3rd. UBS Group began coverage on Jefferies Financial Group in a research report on Tuesday, September 17th. They set a “buy” rating and a $67.00 price objective for the company. Finally, Morgan Stanley raised Jefferies Financial Group from an “equal weight” rating to an “overweight” rating and boosted their target price for the stock from $67.00 to $97.00 in a report on Monday, December 9th.

Insider Activity at Jefferies Financial Group

In other Jefferies Financial Group news, President Brian P. Friedman sold 247,326 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Wednesday, October 30th. The shares were sold at an average price of $65.20, for a total transaction of $16,125,655.20. Following the completion of the sale, the president now directly owns 1,632,277 shares in the company, valued at approximately $106,424,460.40. The trade was a 13.16 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Also, CEO Richard B. Handler sold 400,000 shares of the stock in a transaction on Wednesday, November 6th. The shares were sold at an average price of $72.26, for a total value of $28,904,000.00. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 14,971,288 shares in the company, valued at $1,081,825,270.88. The trade was a 2.60 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 1,086,923 shares of company stock valued at $76,381,151 over the last ninety days. Insiders own 20.40% of the company’s stock.

About Jefferies Financial Group

Jefferies Financial Group Inc operates as an investment banking and capital markets firm in the Americas, Europe, the Middle East, and the Asia-Pacific. The company operates in two segments, Investment Banking and Capital Markets, and Asset Management. It provides investment banking, advisory services with respect to mergers or acquisitions, debt financing, restructurings or recapitalizations, and private capital advisory transactions; underwriting and placement services related to corporate debt, municipal bonds, mortgage-backed and asset-backed securities, equity and equity-linked securities, and loan syndication services; and corporate lending services.