West Pharmaceutical Services, Inc. (WST) To Go Ex-Dividend on April 30th

West Pharmaceutical Services, Inc. (NYSE:WST) announced a quarterly dividend on Thursday, February 20th, RTT News reports. Investors of record on Wednesday, April 30th will be given a dividend of 0.21 per share by the medical instruments supplier on Wednesday, May 7th. This represents a $0.84 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.40%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Wednesday, April 30th.

West Pharmaceutical Services has decreased its dividend by an average of 4.5% per year over the last three years. West Pharmaceutical Services has a dividend payout ratio of 11.9% meaning its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Equities analysts expect West Pharmaceutical Services to earn $7.86 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $0.84 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 10.7%.

West Pharmaceutical Services Trading Up 3.5 %

WST opened at $210.72 on Friday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.08, a current ratio of 2.79 and a quick ratio of 2.23. West Pharmaceutical Services has a fifty-two week low of $197.01 and a fifty-two week high of $400.88. The firm has a market capitalization of $15.24 billion, a PE ratio of 31.50, a P/E/G ratio of 6.74 and a beta of 1.01. The company’s 50-day moving average is $316.29 and its 200 day moving average is $310.57.

West Pharmaceutical Services (NYSE:WST) last posted its earnings results on Thursday, February 13th. The medical instruments supplier reported $1.82 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.75 by $0.07. The company had revenue of $748.80 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $739.59 million. West Pharmaceutical Services had a net margin of 17.03% and a return on equity of 18.60%. As a group, research analysts predict that West Pharmaceutical Services will post 6.62 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Analyst Ratings Changes

WST has been the subject of several analyst reports. KeyCorp decreased their price objective on shares of West Pharmaceutical Services from $470.00 to $325.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a research note on Friday, February 14th. UBS Group upgraded shares of West Pharmaceutical Services from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and increased their price objective for the company from $350.00 to $390.00 in a research note on Thursday, December 12th. Citigroup began coverage on shares of West Pharmaceutical Services in a research note on Wednesday, January 8th. They issued a “buy” rating and a $400.00 price objective for the company. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft raised shares of West Pharmaceutical Services from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and set a $250.00 target price for the company in a research report on Friday, February 14th. Finally, StockNews.com downgraded shares of West Pharmaceutical Services from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Wednesday. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and five have issued a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $344.00.

West Pharmaceutical Services Company Profile

West Pharmaceutical Services, Inc designs, manufactures, and sells containment and delivery systems for injectable drugs and healthcare products in the Americas, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and the Asia Pacific. It operates in two segments, Proprietary Products and Contract-Manufactured Products.