Arko Corp. Plans Quarterly Dividend of $0.03 (NASDAQ:ARKO)

Arko Corp. (NASDAQ:ARKO) announced a quarterly dividend on Tuesday, May 7th, Zacks reports. Shareholders of record on Monday, May 20th will be given a dividend of 0.03 per share on Friday, May 31st. This represents a $0.12 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 2.31%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, May 17th.

Arko has a payout ratio of 240.0% meaning the company cannot currently cover its dividend with earnings alone and is relying on its balance sheet to cover its dividend payments. Research analysts expect Arko to earn $0.07 per share next year, which means the company may not be able to cover its $0.12 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 171.4%.

Arko Trading Up 3.0 %

NASDAQ ARKO traded up $0.15 during mid-day trading on Thursday, reaching $5.19. 282,928 shares of the stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 340,229. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 3.77, a current ratio of 1.54 and a quick ratio of 1.03. The stock has a market cap of $600.69 million, a P/E ratio of 20.20 and a beta of 0.36. The stock has a 50 day simple moving average of $5.27 and a 200-day simple moving average of $6.93. Arko has a one year low of $4.09 and a one year high of $8.55.

Arko (NASDAQ:ARKO) last released its earnings results on Wednesday, February 28th. The company reported $0.06 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.04 by $0.02. The business had revenue of $2.23 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $2.40 billion. Arko had a return on equity of 12.32% and a net margin of 0.37%. During the same quarter last year, the firm posted $0.09 earnings per share. On average, analysts anticipate that Arko will post 0.09 EPS for the current year.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other Arko news, major shareholder Morris Willner sold 2,792,631 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, February 28th. The shares were sold at an average price of $6.76, for a total value of $18,878,185.56. Following the completion of the sale, the insider now owns 11,683,980 shares in the company, valued at approximately $78,983,704.80. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at this link. 21.60% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of research firms recently weighed in on ARKO. BMO Capital Markets dropped their price target on Arko from $7.00 to $6.00 and set a “market perform” rating on the stock in a research note on Thursday. Wells Fargo & Company dropped their price objective on shares of Arko from $7.00 to $5.00 and set an “equal weight” rating on the stock in a research note on Friday, April 19th.

About Arko

Arko Corp. operates convenience stores in the United States. It operates through Retail, Wholesale, Fleet Fueling, and GPMP segments. The Retail segment engages in the sale of fuel and merchandise to retail consumers. Its Wholesale segment supplies fuel to third-party dealers and consignment agents. The Fleet Fueling segment supplies fuel to proprietary and third-party cardlock, and issuance of proprietary fuel cards.