West Pharmaceutical Services, Inc. Plans Quarterly Dividend of $0.20 (NYSE:WST)

West Pharmaceutical Services, Inc. (NYSE:WST) declared a quarterly dividend on Thursday, April 25th, Zacks reports. Investors of record on Wednesday, July 31st will be given a dividend of 0.20 per share by the medical instruments supplier on Wednesday, August 7th. This represents a $0.80 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.28%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Wednesday, July 31st.

West Pharmaceutical Services has increased its dividend payment by an average of 5.8% per year over the last three years and has increased its dividend every year for the last 31 years. West Pharmaceutical Services has a payout ratio of 10.1% indicating that its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Equities research analysts expect West Pharmaceutical Services to earn $8.95 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $0.80 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 8.9%.

West Pharmaceutical Services Stock Performance

WST opened at $288.12 on Tuesday. The stock has a market capitalization of $20.90 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 38.01, a PEG ratio of 6.13 and a beta of 1.00. The company has a fifty day moving average of $322.99 and a 200 day moving average of $355.32. West Pharmaceutical Services has a fifty-two week low of $265.00 and a fifty-two week high of $415.73. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.03, a quick ratio of 1.68 and a current ratio of 2.34.

West Pharmaceutical Services (NYSE:WST) last posted its earnings results on Thursday, July 25th. The medical instruments supplier reported $1.52 earnings per share for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $1.74 by ($0.22). The company had revenue of $702.10 million for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $729.36 million. West Pharmaceutical Services had a net margin of 18.25% and a return on equity of 19.17%. The business’s revenue was down 6.9% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the business posted $2.11 earnings per share. As a group, sell-side analysts forecast that West Pharmaceutical Services will post 6.4 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other West Pharmaceutical Services news, CEO Eric Mark Green sold 66,000 shares of West Pharmaceutical Services stock in a transaction on Tuesday, May 7th. The shares were sold at an average price of $366.65, for a total value of $24,198,900.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 152,908 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $56,063,718.20. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this link. In other West Pharmaceutical Services news, CEO Eric Mark Green sold 66,000 shares of West Pharmaceutical Services stock in a transaction on Tuesday, May 7th. The shares were sold at an average price of $366.65, for a total value of $24,198,900.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 152,908 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $56,063,718.20. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this link. Also, SVP Silji Abraham sold 1,800 shares of West Pharmaceutical Services stock in a transaction on Wednesday, June 12th. The stock was sold at an average price of $330.78, for a total transaction of $595,404.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the senior vice president now directly owns 2,860 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $946,030.80. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Corporate insiders own 0.53% of the company’s stock.

About West Pharmaceutical Services

West Pharmaceutical Services, Inc designs, manufactures, and sells containment and delivery systems for injectable drugs and healthcare products in the Americas, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and the Asia Pacific. It operates in two segments, Proprietary Products and Contract-Manufactured Products.