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

Assured Guaranty Ltd. (NYSE:AGO) announced a quarterly dividend on Thursday, May 2nd, Zacks reports. Investors 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 is Tuesday, May 14th. This is a boost from Assured Guaranty’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.28.

Assured Guaranty has increased its dividend payment by an average of 11.9% per year over the last three years and has raised 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. Research 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 Stock Up 0.6 %

Shares of NYSE:AGO opened at $77.87 on Friday. Assured Guaranty has a 1 year low of $49.84 and a 1 year high of $96.60. The company has a market capitalization of $4.32 billion, a PE ratio of 6.28 and a beta of 1.14. The business has a fifty day moving average price of $85.01 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $77.05. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.29, a current ratio of 0.88 and a quick ratio of 0.88.

Assured Guaranty (NYSE:AGO) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, February 28th. The financial services provider reported $5.75 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.18 by $4.57. The business had revenue of $233.00 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $196.15 million. Assured Guaranty had a return on equity of 11.82% and a net margin of 53.82%. Assured Guaranty’s revenue was up 20.7% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the prior year, the company earned $0.22 earnings per share. Analysts forecast that Assured Guaranty will post 6 earnings per share for the current year.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Assured Guaranty news, CEO Dominic Frederico sold 55,000 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, March 20th. The stock was sold at an average price of $92.43, for a total transaction of $5,083,650.00. Following the sale, 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 document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. Corporate insiders own 5.10% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

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

About Assured Guaranty

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.