Crown Castle Inc. (CCI) to Issue Quarterly Dividend of $1.06 on March 31st

Crown Castle Inc. (NYSE:CCI) announced a quarterly dividend on Wednesday, February 25th. Stockholders of record on Friday, March 13th will be given a dividend of 1.0625 per share by the real estate investment trust on Tuesday, March 31st. This represents a c) dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 4.8%. The ex-dividend date is Friday, March 13th.

Crown Castle has decreased its dividend by an average of 0.0%annually over the last three years. Crown Castle has a dividend payout ratio of 151.2% indicating that the company cannot currently cover its dividend with earnings alone and is relying on its balance sheet to cover its dividend payments. Equities analysts expect Crown Castle to earn $6.58 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $4.25 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 64.6%.

Crown Castle Stock Down 1.3%

Shares of Crown Castle stock opened at $88.52 on Wednesday. The stock has a market cap of $38.60 billion, a PE ratio of 87.64, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 0.45 and a beta of 0.96. The business has a fifty day simple moving average of $87.34 and a 200-day simple moving average of $91.11. Crown Castle has a 12 month low of $77.01 and a 12 month high of $115.76.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several equities research analysts recently issued reports on the company. JPMorgan Chase & Co. reduced their price objective on Crown Castle from $110.00 to $95.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a research note on Thursday, February 5th. KeyCorp dropped their target price on Crown Castle from $115.00 to $98.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a report on Thursday, February 5th. Zacks Research upgraded shares of Crown Castle from a “strong sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Wednesday, March 4th. Sanford C. Bernstein started coverage on shares of Crown Castle in a research report on Thursday, March 5th. They set an “outperform” rating and a $102.00 price objective on the stock. Finally, Wall Street Zen lowered shares of Crown Castle from a “hold” rating to a “sell” rating in a research note on Saturday, February 28th. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, nine have given a Buy rating and ten have given a Hold rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $100.13.

About Crown Castle

Crown Castle is a U.S.-focused communications infrastructure company organized as a real estate investment trust (REIT) that owns, operates and leases shared wireless infrastructure. Its primary business consists of providing tower-based site leases, small cell networks and fiber solutions that support mobile voice and data transmission for wireless carriers, cable companies and other enterprise customers. The company’s assets are positioned to enable network coverage and capacity, including the densification projects associated with 4G LTE and 5G deployments.

Its product and service offerings include ground-based tower sites that host multiple wireless operators, distributed small cell nodes and associated fiber backhaul used to connect sites into carrier networks, and site development and maintenance services.