P. H. Glatfelter Company Offers Rising Dividend, Pays 2.5% Yield (GLT)

The P.H. Glatfelter Company (NYSE: GLT) is currently paying a 2.5% dividend yield and has hiked its annual dividend payout for the past six consecutive years.

While the share price is down double-digit percentage over the past 12 months, it has reversed course and has been trending up over the past three months. Technical indicators are pointing towards a potentially sustained share price uptrend for the near term. If the share price rise continues, then the current dip could be a good opportunity to buy the share at discount and enjoy the benefits of rising dividend income and growing share prices.

The company’s next ex-dividend date will be on January 2, 2018, and the pay date is scheduled to follow approximately one month later on February 1, 2018.

P.H. Glatfelter Company (NYSE:GLT)

Founded in 1864 and headquartered in York, Pennsylvania, the P. H. Glatfelter Company manufactures and sells specialty papers and fiber-based engineered materials. The company’s Composite Fibers business unit offers food and beverage filtration paper, wall covering materials, products used for labels, packaging liner, gift wrap and other consumer product applications.

Glatfelter’s Advanced Airlaid Materials business unit supplies absorbent cellulose-based airlaid nonwoven materials that are used for feminine hygiene, specialty wipe, adult incontinence, home care and other consumer products. The company’s Specialty Papers business unit offers papers for credit card receipts, multi-part forms, security papers products for high-speed ink jet printing, office specialty products, greeting cards and envelopes, as well as for production of hardbound books and other book publishing needs.

The company’s current quarterly dividend of $0.13 per share is equivalent to a $0.52 annualized payout and a 2.5% dividend yield. This current 2.5% yield is 26% higher than the company’s own 2.0% average dividend yield over the past five years. Additionally, the current yield is 35% higher than the 1.86% average yield of P.H. Glatfelter’s peers in the Paper & Paper Products segment and it is 57% higher than its 1.6% average dividend yield of the entire Consumer Goods sector.

The company started paying dividends in 1990 and it cut its annual dividend payout only twice over the past two decades. After its most recent annual dividend cut in 2004, the company paid a flat annual dividend of $0.32 for eight consecutive years, before starting its current streak of consecutive dividend hikes. Over the past six years, the annual dividend amount rose at an average rate of 6.3% per year. That growth rate resulted in a 44% enhancement of the total annual dividend payout since 2012.

One of the contributing factors to the rise of the company’s current yield is the 33% share price drop from $24.86 one year ago that the share price experienced before it embarked on its current uptrend. After losing one third of its value after December 20, 2016, the share price fell to $16.68 – its lowest level of the trailing 12-month period – by August 23, 2017.

However, after bottoming out in late August 2017, the share price recovered 53% of its 2017 losses by December 18, 2017, and closed at $20.64. While that price level is still approximately 17% below the price from one year ago and the 52-week high of $25.05 from late January 2017, it is 23.7% higher than the 52-week low from late August 2017.

Because of the current share price uptrend, the 50-day moving average (MA) reversed course as well after crossing below the 200-day MA in mid-April and continuing to fall until October 10, 2017, when the 50-day MA reversed course and started rising again. The 50-day MA crossed back above the 200-day MA on December 1, 2017, and continues to rise, which is an indication that the share price could continue to grow and could reward current shareholders and any new investors with steady asset appreciation to complement the rising dividend income.

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