Assured Guaranty Ltd. (NYSE:AGO) Increases Dividend to $0.31 Per Share

Assured Guaranty Ltd. (NYSE:AGO) declared a quarterly dividend on Thursday, May 2nd, Zacks reports. Shareholders of record on Wednesday, May 15th will be paid a dividend of 0.31 per share by the financial services provider on Wednesday, May 29th. This represents a $1.24 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.59%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Tuesday, May 14th. This is an increase from Assured Guaranty’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.28.

Assured Guaranty has increased its dividend payment by an average of 11.9% annually over the last three years and has increased its dividend every year for the last 6 years. Assured Guaranty has a dividend payout ratio of 18.4% meaning its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Analysts expect Assured Guaranty to earn $7.20 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $1.24 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 17.2%.

Assured Guaranty Trading Up 0.6 %

NYSE:AGO traded up $0.43 on Friday, hitting $77.87. 498,032 shares of the stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 385,555. The stock has a fifty day moving average of $85.01 and a 200-day moving average of $77.05. The stock has a market cap of $4.32 billion, a PE ratio of 6.28 and a beta of 1.14. Assured Guaranty has a fifty-two week low of $49.84 and a fifty-two week high of $96.60. The company has a current ratio of 0.88, a quick ratio of 0.88 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.29.

Assured Guaranty (NYSE:AGO) last issued its earnings results on Wednesday, February 28th. The financial services provider reported $5.75 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.18 by $4.57. Assured Guaranty had a net margin of 53.82% and a return on equity of 11.82%. The business had revenue of $233.00 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $196.15 million. During the same quarter last year, the firm posted $0.22 EPS. The business’s revenue for the quarter was up 20.7% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, equities analysts expect that Assured Guaranty will post 6 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several equities research analysts have recently weighed in on the company. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods reaffirmed a “market perform” rating and issued a $92.00 target price (up previously from $75.00) on shares of Assured Guaranty in a research report on Monday, April 1st. UBS Group increased their price objective on shares of Assured Guaranty from $64.00 to $102.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Friday, March 1st.

Insider Activity

In related news, CEO Dominic Frederico sold 55,000 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, March 20th. The stock was sold at an average price of $92.43, for a total value of $5,083,650.00. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 1,450,824 shares in the company, valued at $134,099,662.32. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available at this hyperlink. Insiders own 5.10% of the company’s stock.

Assured Guaranty Company Profile

Assured Guaranty Ltd., together with its subsidiaries, provides credit protection products to public finance, infrastructure, and structured finance markets in the United States and internationally. It operates through two segments: Insurance and Asset Management. The company offers financial guaranty insurance that protects holders of debt instruments and other monetary obligations from defaults in scheduled payments.