Gildan Activewear Inc. (TSE:GIL) Given Average Recommendation of “Buy” by Analysts

Shares of Gildan Activewear Inc. (TSE:GIL) (NYSE:GIL) have received a consensus recommendation of “Buy” from the seven brokerages that are presently covering the company, Marketbeat reports. Five equities research analysts have rated the stock with a buy rating and two have issued a strong buy rating on the company. The average 12-month target price among analysts that have issued ratings on the stock in the last year is C$57.20.

GIL has been the topic of a number of analyst reports. National Bankshares upped their target price on shares of Gildan Activewear from C$68.00 to C$74.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Friday, November 1st. UBS Group upgraded shares of Gildan Activewear from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Friday, January 10th.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other news, Senior Officer Jason De Haan sold 15,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, November 5th. The stock was sold at an average price of C$69.35, for a total value of C$1,040,179.14. Also, Director Michener Chandlee acquired 736 shares of Gildan Activewear stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, November 4th. The shares were purchased at an average cost of C$67.83 per share, for a total transaction of C$49,920.57. Corporate insiders own 2.26% of the company’s stock.

Gildan Activewear Stock Up 1.8 %

Shares of GIL opened at C$75.87 on Friday. Gildan Activewear has a 52 week low of C$44.07 and a 52 week high of C$76.20. The firm has a market capitalization of C$12.34 billion, a P/E ratio of 23.20, a P/E/G ratio of 4.55 and a beta of 1.64. The company has a 50-day simple moving average of C$69.45 and a 200-day simple moving average of C$63.96. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 72.52, a quick ratio of 0.87 and a current ratio of 2.35.

Gildan Activewear (TSE:GIL) (NYSE:GIL) last released its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, October 31st. The company reported C$1.16 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, meeting analysts’ consensus estimates of C$1.16. Gildan Activewear had a return on equity of 21.95% and a net margin of 13.01%. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm earned $0.99 EPS. On average, equities research analysts expect that Gildan Activewear will post 4.5460385 earnings per share for the current year.

Gildan Activewear Cuts Dividend

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, December 16th. Stockholders of record on Monday, December 16th were paid a dividend of $0.205 per share. This represents a $0.82 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.08%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, November 21st. Gildan Activewear’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 33.94%.

About Gildan Activewear

Gildan Activewear Inc manufactures and sells various apparel products in the United States, North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, and Latin America. It provides various activewear products, including T-shirts, fleece tops and bottoms, and sports shirts under the Gildan, Gildan Performance, Gildan Hammer, Glidan Softstyle, Gildan Heavy Cotton, Gildan Ultra Cotton, Gildan DryBlend, Gildan HeavyBlend, Comfort Colors, and American Apparel brands.