Toro Hikes Quarterly Dividend; Sees Q1, FY17 Earnings In Line

(RTTNews) - While reporting its fourth-quarter financial results today, Toro Co. (TTC) said that its board of directors increased the quarterly dividend by 16.7 percent. The company also forecast earnings for the first quarter and fiscal 2017 in line with analysts' estimates.

The company's board of directors has declared a quarterly cash dividend of $0.175 per share, representing a 16.7 percent increase from its previous quarterly dividend rate of $0.15 per share. The dividend is payable on January 12, 2017 to shareholders of record on December 27, 2016.

Looking ahead to the first quarter, Toro forecast net earnings to be about $0.34 to $0.36 per share. On average, six analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expect the company to report earnings of $0.35 per share for the quarter. Analysts' estimates typically exclude special items.

For fiscal 2017, Toro projects revenue growth to be about 3 to 4 percent, and net earnings of about $2.20 to $2.26 per share. The Street expects earnings of $2.22 per share for the year on revenues of $2.51 billion.