General Mills, Inc. (NYSE:GIS) Announces Quarterly Dividend of $0.61

General Mills, Inc. (NYSE:GIS) declared a quarterly dividend on Wednesday, June 25th, RTT News reports. Investors of record on Thursday, July 10th will be given a dividend of 0.61 per share on Friday, August 1st. This represents a $2.44 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 4.81%. This is a 1.7% increase from General Mills’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.60.

General Mills has a dividend payout ratio of 57.3% indicating that its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Equities research analysts expect General Mills to earn $4.46 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $2.40 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 53.8%.

General Mills Stock Down 5.0%

GIS stock opened at $50.74 on Thursday. The stock has a market capitalization of $27.97 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 11.15, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.27 and a beta of 0.02. The company has a 50-day moving average of $54.62 and a two-hundred day moving average of $58.57. General Mills has a 52-week low of $50.66 and a 52-week high of $75.90. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.24, a current ratio of 0.67 and a quick ratio of 0.44.

General Mills (NYSE:GIS) last announced its earnings results on Wednesday, June 25th. The company reported $0.74 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.72 by $0.02. The firm had revenue of $4.56 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $4.60 billion. General Mills had a return on equity of 26.39% and a net margin of 13.02%. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was down 3.3% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company earned $1.01 EPS. As a group, equities research analysts anticipate that General Mills will post 4.36 EPS for the current year.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several research firms have recently issued reports on GIS. Barclays dropped their price objective on shares of General Mills from $68.00 to $65.00 and set an “equal weight” rating on the stock in a report on Tuesday, March 18th. Citigroup lowered their price target on General Mills from $60.00 to $58.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a research note on Friday, March 14th. Bank of America reduced their price objective on General Mills from $68.00 to $63.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research report on Wednesday, June 18th. The Goldman Sachs Group cut General Mills from a “buy” rating to a “neutral” rating and lowered their price objective for the company from $68.00 to $58.00 in a research report on Monday, June 9th. Finally, Royal Bank Of Canada restated a “sector perform” rating and issued a $70.00 target price on shares of General Mills in a research note on Monday, March 17th. Two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, twelve have given a hold rating and three have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, General Mills presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $62.63.

General Mills Company Profile

General Mills, Inc manufactures and markets branded consumer foods worldwide. The company operates through four segments: North America Retail; International; Pet; and North America Foodservice. It offers grain, ready-to-eat cereals, refrigerated yogurt, soup, meal kits, refrigerated and frozen dough products, dessert and baking mixes, bakery flour, frozen pizza and pizza snacks, snack bars, fruit and savory snacks, ice cream and frozen desserts, unbaked and fully baked frozen dough products, frozen hot snacks, ethnic meals, side dish mixes, frozen breakfast and entrees, nutrition bars, and frozen and shelf-stable vegetables.