Darden Restaurants, Inc. (DRI) To Go Ex-Dividend on July 10th

Darden Restaurants, Inc. (NYSE:DRI) announced a quarterly dividend on Thursday, June 25th. Investors of record on Friday, July 10th will be paid a dividend of 1.62 per share by the restaurant operator on Monday, August 3rd. This represents a c) annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 3.0%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, July 10th. This is a 8.0% increase from Darden Restaurants’s previous quarterly dividend of $1.50.

Darden Restaurants has increased its dividend by an average of 0.2%annually over the last three years and has increased its dividend annually for the last 4 consecutive years. Darden Restaurants has a payout ratio of 56.3% meaning its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Research analysts expect Darden Restaurants to earn $12.40 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $6.48 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 52.3%.

Darden Restaurants Trading Up 0.5%

NYSE DRI opened at $213.79 on Friday. The stock has a market capitalization of $24.49 billion, a P/E ratio of 20.60, a P/E/G ratio of 1.92 and a beta of 0.60. The business has a 50 day simple moving average of $201.89 and a 200 day simple moving average of $200.98. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.74, a current ratio of 0.31 and a quick ratio of 0.25. Darden Restaurants has a one year low of $169.00 and a one year high of $222.56.

Darden Restaurants (NYSE:DRI) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, June 25th. The restaurant operator reported $3.66 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $3.63 by $0.03. The firm had revenue of $3.72 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $3.73 billion. Darden Restaurants had a return on equity of 57.44% and a net margin of 9.13%.The company’s revenue was up 13.7% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the firm earned $2.98 earnings per share. Darden Restaurants has set its FY 2027 guidance at 11.100-11.350 EPS. Research analysts expect that Darden Restaurants will post 11.28 earnings per share for the current year.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of equities research analysts have commented on DRI shares. Weiss Ratings cut shares of Darden Restaurants from a “buy (b)” rating to a “buy (b-)” rating in a report on Thursday, June 11th. KeyCorp upped their price objective on shares of Darden Restaurants from $226.00 to $228.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Wednesday, May 27th. Citigroup increased their price objective on shares of Darden Restaurants from $238.00 to $245.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Monday, June 15th. BMO Capital Markets restated a “market perform” rating on shares of Darden Restaurants in a research note on Monday. Finally, Robert W. Baird boosted their target price on Darden Restaurants from $210.00 to $220.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Friday. Seventeen equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and ten have assigned a Hold rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $228.32.

Darden Restaurants Company Profile

Darden Restaurants, Inc is a multi-brand, full-service restaurant company headquartered in Orlando, Florida. The company owns and operates a portfolio of casual and fine-dining concepts that together serve millions of guests through company-owned and franchised locations. Its well-known brands include Olive Garden and LongHorn Steakhouse, alongside other dining concepts that span Italian, American, steakhouse and upscale casual formats.

Darden’s restaurants provide a range of guest-facing services including dine-in, takeout, delivery and catering, and feature menus tailored to each brand’s positioning—Italian-American fare at Olive Garden, steaks and grilled items at LongHorn, and more premium steakhouse and chef-driven offerings at its upscale concepts.