Lennar Co. Plans Quarterly Dividend of $0.50 (NYSE:LEN)

Lennar Co. (NYSE:LEN) announced a quarterly dividend on Tuesday, January 14th,Wall Street Journal reports. Shareholders of record on Wednesday, January 29th will be given a dividend of 0.50 per share by the construction company on Wednesday, February 12th. This represents a $2.00 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.44%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Wednesday, January 29th.

Lennar has raised its dividend payment by an average of 26.0% annually over the last three years. Lennar has a dividend payout ratio of 13.0% meaning its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Equities analysts expect Lennar to earn $16.04 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $2.00 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 12.5%.

Lennar Price Performance

Shares of LEN traded up $3.32 during mid-day trading on Wednesday, reaching $138.50. 4,865,759 shares of the stock traded hands, compared to its average volume of 3,176,229. The company has a current ratio of 4.90, a quick ratio of 0.98 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.08. Lennar has a 1 year low of $128.41 and a 1 year high of $193.80. The company has a market cap of $37.57 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 9.17, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.28 and a beta of 1.66. The firm has a fifty day moving average price of $154.76 and a 200 day moving average price of $167.57.

Lennar (NYSE:LEN) last posted its earnings results on Wednesday, December 18th. The construction company reported $4.03 EPS for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $4.15 by ($0.12). The business had revenue of $9.95 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $10.06 billion. Lennar had a return on equity of 15.47% and a net margin of 11.51%. Lennar’s quarterly revenue was down 9.3% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm earned $4.82 earnings per share. As a group, equities research analysts predict that Lennar will post 14.11 earnings per share for the current year.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of equities research analysts recently weighed in on the stock. Wedbush reaffirmed a “neutral” rating and issued a $164.00 target price on shares of Lennar in a research note on Thursday, December 19th. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods lowered their price objective on shares of Lennar from $210.00 to $170.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a research report on Friday, December 20th. StockNews.com lowered shares of Lennar from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Saturday, September 28th. JMP Securities raised their price target on Lennar from $170.00 to $210.00 and gave the company a “market outperform” rating in a research report on Wednesday, September 25th. Finally, Evercore ISI cut their price objective on Lennar from $240.00 to $236.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a report on Monday, September 23rd. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, fourteen have given a hold rating and six have given a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $171.50.

Insider Buying and Selling at Lennar

In other news, Director Jeffrey Sonnenfeld sold 17,500 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, October 28th. The stock was sold at an average price of $175.13, for a total transaction of $3,064,775.00. Following the transaction, the director now directly owns 23,689 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $4,148,654.57. The trade was a 42.49 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Corporate insiders own 9.36% of the company’s stock.

Lennar Company Profile

Lennar Corporation, together with its subsidiaries, operates as a homebuilder primarily under the Lennar brand in the United States. It operates through Homebuilding East, Homebuilding Central, Homebuilding Texas, Homebuilding West, Financial Services, Multifamily, and Lennar Other segments. The company’s homebuilding operations include the construction and sale of single-family attached and detached homes, as well as the purchase, development, and sale of residential land; and development, construction, and management of multifamily rental properties.