Matson, Inc. Announces Quarterly Dividend of $0.32 (NYSE:MATX)

Matson, Inc. (NYSE:MATX) announced a quarterly dividend on Thursday, April 25th, Zacks reports. Shareholders of record on Thursday, May 9th will be paid a dividend of 0.32 per share by the shipping company on Thursday, June 6th. This represents a $1.28 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.17%. The ex-dividend date is Wednesday, May 8th.

Matson has increased its dividend payment by an average of 11.9% annually over the last three years and has raised its dividend every year for the last 12 years. Matson has a payout ratio of 14.9% indicating that its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Research analysts expect Matson to earn $7.81 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $1.28 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 16.4%.

Matson Trading Down 0.7 %

NYSE:MATX traded down $0.78 on Friday, reaching $108.94. 171,616 shares of the company’s stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 198,083. The company has a quick ratio of 1.07, a current ratio of 1.07 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.16. The firm has a market capitalization of $3.76 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 13.00 and a beta of 1.12. The business has a fifty day moving average of $109.38 and a 200-day moving average of $105.29. Matson has a 52-week low of $62.71 and a 52-week high of $122.99.

Matson (NYSE:MATX) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, February 20th. The shipping company reported $1.78 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.75 by $0.03. The company had revenue of $788.90 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $733.60 million. Matson had a net margin of 9.60% and a return on equity of 12.71%. The business’s revenue for the quarter was down 1.6% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the prior year, the firm earned $2.10 earnings per share. As a group, analysts expect that Matson will post 8.2 earnings per share for the current year.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of brokerages have recently commented on MATX. StockNews.com raised Matson from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report on Saturday, April 20th. Stifel Nicolaus boosted their price objective on Matson from $108.00 to $109.00 and gave the stock a “hold” rating in a research report on Wednesday, February 21st.

Insider Activity at Matson

In related news, SVP Christopher A. Scott sold 1,171 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, March 13th. The stock was sold at an average price of $107.83, for a total value of $126,268.93. Following the completion of the transaction, the senior vice president now directly owns 12,958 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $1,397,261.14. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through the SEC website. 2.32% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

About Matson

Matson, Inc, together with its subsidiaries, engages in the provision of ocean transportation and logistics services. It operates through two segments, Ocean Transportation and Logistics. The Ocean Transportation segment offers ocean freight transportation services to the domestic non-contiguous economies of Hawaii, Japan, Alaska, and Guam, as well as to other island economies in Micronesia.