Flowers Foods, Inc. (FLO) To Go Ex-Dividend on February 28th

Flowers Foods, Inc. (NYSE:FLO) declared a quarterly dividend on Friday, February 14th, RTT News reports. Investors of record on Friday, February 28th will be paid a dividend of 0.24 per share on Friday, March 14th. This represents a $0.96 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 4.96%. The ex-dividend date is Friday, February 28th.

Flowers Foods has increased its dividend payment by an average of 4.6% per year over the last three years and has increased its dividend every year for the last 23 years. Flowers Foods has a dividend payout ratio of 78.0% indicating that its dividend is currently covered by earnings, but may not be in the future if the company’s earnings decline. Equities analysts expect Flowers Foods to earn $1.29 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 74.4%.

Flowers Foods Stock Performance

Shares of NYSE FLO opened at $19.36 on Wednesday. The company has a market cap of $4.08 billion, a P/E ratio of 16.54, a P/E/G ratio of 8.72 and a beta of 0.38. Flowers Foods has a 52-week low of $17.99 and a 52-week high of $26.12. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.72, a quick ratio of 0.95 and a current ratio of 1.20. The firm’s fifty day moving average is $19.69 and its two-hundred day moving average is $21.57.

Flowers Foods (NYSE:FLO) last issued its earnings results on Friday, February 7th. The company reported $0.22 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.21 by $0.01. Flowers Foods had a return on equity of 19.48% and a net margin of 4.86%. During the same period in the previous year, the business earned $0.20 EPS. As a group, analysts anticipate that Flowers Foods will post 1.18 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several analysts have recently issued reports on the company. Truist Financial decreased their price objective on Flowers Foods from $23.00 to $20.00 and set a “hold” rating on the stock in a report on Monday, February 10th. DA Davidson decreased their price target on shares of Flowers Foods from $24.00 to $21.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a research note on Monday, February 10th. Finally, StockNews.com lowered shares of Flowers Foods from a “strong-buy” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, December 20th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, three have assigned a hold rating and one has given a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company presently has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $21.00.

Flowers Foods Company Profile

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.