RenaissanceRe Holdings Ltd. (NYSE:RNR) Announces Quarterly Dividend of $0.40

RenaissanceRe Holdings Ltd. (NYSE:RNR) declared a quarterly dividend on Thursday, February 6th,Wall Street Journal reports. Shareholders of record on Friday, March 14th will be given a dividend of 0.40 per share by the insurance provider on Monday, March 31st. This represents a $1.60 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.67%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, March 14th. This is a boost from RenaissanceRe’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.39.

RenaissanceRe has increased its dividend by an average of 2.7% annually over the last three years. RenaissanceRe has a payout ratio of 4.2% indicating that its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Equities analysts expect RenaissanceRe to earn $39.12 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $1.56 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 4.0%.

RenaissanceRe Price Performance

Shares of RNR opened at $239.49 on Friday. The stock has a market capitalization of $12.44 billion, a PE ratio of 6.84, a PEG ratio of 1.91 and a beta of 0.43. The company has a 50 day moving average price of $255.06 and a 200-day moving average price of $257.47. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.19, a quick ratio of 1.43 and a current ratio of 1.42. RenaissanceRe has a fifty-two week low of $208.98 and a fifty-two week high of $300.00.

RenaissanceRe (NYSE:RNR) last posted its earnings results on Tuesday, January 28th. The insurance provider reported $8.06 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $6.94 by $1.12. RenaissanceRe had a return on equity of 23.41% and a net margin of 15.99%. Equities analysts predict that RenaissanceRe will post 29.92 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several research firms have issued reports on RNR. StockNews.com lowered RenaissanceRe from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Tuesday, October 22nd. Barclays downgraded shares of RenaissanceRe from an “equal weight” rating to an “underweight” rating and cut their price objective for the stock from $284.00 to $234.00 in a research report on Monday, January 6th. Morgan Stanley decreased their target price on shares of RenaissanceRe from $265.00 to $245.00 and set an “equal weight” rating for the company in a research report on Friday, January 31st. Jefferies Financial Group reaffirmed a “hold” rating and issued a $282.00 price target (down from $304.00) on shares of RenaissanceRe in a report on Wednesday, December 18th. Finally, Keefe, Bruyette & Woods decreased their price objective on RenaissanceRe from $318.00 to $294.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a report on Tuesday. Two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, six have assigned a hold rating and four have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, RenaissanceRe has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $279.90.

Insider Activity at RenaissanceRe

In other news, EVP David E. Marra sold 1,000 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, January 15th. The stock was sold at an average price of $254.16, for a total value of $254,160.00. Following the transaction, the executive vice president now directly owns 79,392 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $20,178,270.72. This represents a 1.24 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through the SEC website. 1.30% of the stock is owned by insiders.

About RenaissanceRe

RenaissanceRe Holdings Ltd., together with its subsidiaries, provides reinsurance and insurance products in the United States and internationally. The company operates through Property, and Casualty and Specialty segments. The Property segment writes property catastrophe excess of loss reinsurance and excess of loss reinsurance to insure insurance and reinsurance companies against natural and man-made catastrophes, including hurricanes, earthquakes, typhoons, and tsunamis, as well as winter storms, freezes, floods, fires, windstorms, tornadoes, explosions, and acts of terrorism; and other property class of products, such as proportional reinsurance, property per risk, property reinsurance, binding facilities, and regional U.S.