Flowers Foods, Inc. Declares Quarterly Dividend of $0.24 (NYSE:FLO)

Flowers Foods, Inc. (NYSE:FLO - Get Free Report) announced a quarterly dividend on Friday, November 15th,RTT News reports. Stockholders of record on Friday, November 29th will be given a dividend of 0.24 per share on Friday, December 13th. This represents a $0.96 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 4.45%.

Flowers Foods has raised its dividend by an average of 4.8% per year over the last three years and has raised its dividend annually for the last 23 consecutive years. Flowers Foods has a dividend payout ratio of 73.3% meaning its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Equities research analysts expect Flowers Foods to earn $1.31 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $0.96 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 73.3%.

Flowers Foods Price Performance

NYSE:FLO traded down $0.26 during trading hours on Friday, hitting $21.57. 1,986,141 shares of the stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 1,179,797. Flowers Foods has a 52-week low of $20.50 and a 52-week high of $26.12. The firm's fifty day moving average price is $22.68 and its 200 day moving average price is $22.92. The company has a current ratio of 1.24, a quick ratio of 0.91 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.75. The company has a market cap of $4.54 billion, a P/E ratio of 18.92, a P/E/G ratio of 4.12 and a beta of 0.36.

Flowers Foods (NYSE:FLO - Get Free Report) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Friday, November 8th. The company reported $0.33 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts' consensus estimates of $0.30 by $0.03. Flowers Foods had a return on equity of 19.41% and a net margin of 4.70%. The business had revenue of $1.19 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.20 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the business earned $0.29 earnings per share. The business's revenue was down .7% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, equities research analysts anticipate that Flowers Foods will post 1.27 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Separately, StockNews.com upgraded Flowers Foods from a "buy" rating to a "strong-buy" rating in a research note on Monday.

About Flowers Foods

Flowers Foods, Inc produces and markets packaged bakery food products in the United States. Its principal products include fresh breads, buns, rolls, snack items, bagels, English muffins, and tortillas, as well as frozen breads and rolls under the Nature's Own, Dave's Killer Bread, Wonder, Canyon Bakehouse, Mrs.