Ashland Inc. (NYSE:ASH) Announces $0.42 Quarterly Dividend

Ashland Inc. (NYSE:ASH) declared a quarterly dividend on Monday, January 19th. Investors of record on Sunday, March 1st will be given a dividend of 0.415 per share by the basic materials company on Sunday, March 15th. This represents a c) dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 2.6%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, February 27th.

Ashland has increased its dividend payment by an average of 0.1%annually over the last three years and has raised its dividend annually for the last 16 consecutive years. Ashland has a payout ratio of 34.8% indicating that its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Research analysts expect Ashland to earn $5.29 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $1.66 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 31.4%.

Ashland Price Performance

Shares of Ashland stock opened at $62.93 on Tuesday. Ashland has a 52 week low of $45.21 and a 52 week high of $73.31. The company has a current ratio of 2.85, a quick ratio of 1.51 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.73. The stock has a market cap of $2.88 billion, a PE ratio of -3.43, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.06 and a beta of 0.43. The company’s 50-day moving average price is $57.46 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $53.62.

Ashland (NYSE:ASH) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, November 4th. The basic materials company reported $1.08 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $1.17 by ($0.09). Ashland had a positive return on equity of 7.07% and a negative net margin of 46.25%.The business had revenue of $477.00 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $481.97 million. During the same period in the prior year, the firm earned $1.26 EPS. The business’s revenue for the quarter was down 8.4% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, sell-side analysts anticipate that Ashland will post 4.27 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Ashland Company Profile

Ashland Inc is a global specialty chemicals company that develops, manufactures and supplies a broad range of performance and process-critical additives, ingredients and technologies. Its portfolio spans performance additives for coatings, adhesives and sealants; specialty ingredients for personal care and pharmaceutical applications; and process aids used in water treatment and other industrial processes. Ashland aims to address customer challenges by delivering tailored solutions that improve product performance, processing efficiency and sustainability outcomes.

Founded in 1924 as the Ashland Oil & Refining Company, the firm gradually expanded into the specialty chemicals sector over the second half of the 20th century.