Navient Corporation Announces Quarterly Dividend of $0.16 (NASDAQ:NAVI)

Navient Corporation (NASDAQ:NAVI) declared a quarterly dividend on Friday, February 20th. Shareholders of record on Friday, March 6th will be paid a dividend of 0.16 per share by the credit services provider on Friday, March 20th. This represents a c) dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 7.4%. The ex-dividend date is Friday, March 6th.

Navient has a payout ratio of 47.8% indicating that its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Analysts expect Navient to earn $1.41 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $0.64 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 45.4%.

Navient Price Performance

Shares of NASDAQ:NAVI opened at $8.60 on Wednesday. The company has a market cap of $817.77 million, a P/E ratio of -10.49 and a beta of 1.33. The business has a fifty day simple moving average of $11.04 and a 200-day simple moving average of $12.12. Navient has a 52 week low of $8.30 and a 52 week high of $16.07. The company has a quick ratio of 9.01, a current ratio of 9.01 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 16.94.

Navient (NASDAQ:NAVI) last released its earnings results on Tuesday, January 27th. The credit services provider reported $0.02 earnings per share for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $0.31 by ($0.29). The business had revenue of $137.00 million for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $144.25 million. Navient had a positive return on equity of 4.70% and a negative net margin of 2.47%.During the same quarter last year, the company posted ($0.24) earnings per share. Equities research analysts forecast that Navient will post 1.04 EPS for the current year.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several research firms recently issued reports on NAVI. Morgan Stanley set a $12.00 target price on shares of Navient in a research report on Wednesday, January 28th. Barclays set a $9.00 price target on shares of Navient in a report on Thursday, January 29th. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft dropped their price objective on Navient from $15.00 to $9.00 and set a “hold” rating for the company in a report on Thursday, January 29th. Zacks Research cut Navient from a “hold” rating to a “strong sell” rating in a report on Monday, February 2nd. Finally, Weiss Ratings restated a “sell (d)” rating on shares of Navient in a research note on Monday, December 29th. Five analysts have rated the stock with a Hold rating and six have given a Sell rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock has a consensus rating of “Strong Sell” and an average price target of $11.63.

Navient Company Profile

Navient Corporation (NASDAQ: NAVI) is a specialized provider of asset management and business processing solutions, with a primary focus on student loan servicing. Established in 2014 through the separation from Sallie Mae, Navient assumed responsibility for servicing federal and private education loans, positioning itself as one of the largest servicers of higher education debt in the United States.

The company’s core activities center on federal student loan servicing under contracts with the U.S.