Nomura Holdings Inc. Acquires Shares of 14,858 PPL Co. (NYSE:PPL)

Nomura Holdings Inc. acquired a new position in shares of PPL Co. (NYSE:PPL) during the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The firm acquired 14,858 shares of the utilities provider’s stock, valued at approximately $403,000.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also made changes to their positions in PPL. DekaBank Deutsche Girozentrale raised its position in PPL by 4.7% in the 3rd quarter. DekaBank Deutsche Girozentrale now owns 41,649 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $969,000 after purchasing an additional 1,886 shares during the last quarter. Envestnet Asset Management Inc. grew its holdings in shares of PPL by 15.3% during the third quarter. Envestnet Asset Management Inc. now owns 1,551,708 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $36,558,000 after buying an additional 205,727 shares during the last quarter. V Square Quantitative Management LLC acquired a new position in PPL in the 3rd quarter valued at about $185,000. Clearbridge Investments LLC raised its stake in PPL by 36.9% during the 3rd quarter. Clearbridge Investments LLC now owns 920,663 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $21,691,000 after acquiring an additional 247,970 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Mariner LLC lifted its position in PPL by 8.3% during the 3rd quarter. Mariner LLC now owns 65,036 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $1,532,000 after acquiring an additional 4,963 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 76.99% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of research analysts have recently issued reports on the company. Mizuho boosted their target price on PPL from $27.00 to $28.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a report on Thursday, May 2nd. Argus upgraded shares of PPL from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and set a $30.00 price objective for the company in a research report on Friday, March 8th. StockNews.com raised shares of PPL from a “sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Friday, May 10th. Barclays boosted their price target on shares of PPL from $27.00 to $28.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Thursday, March 14th. Finally, Bank of America raised their price objective on shares of PPL from $29.00 to $30.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Thursday, April 11th. Five analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and six have assigned a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the stock presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $32.45.

PPL Trading Down 0.3 %

Shares of PPL stock opened at $27.96 on Friday. The company has a 50-day moving average of $28.26 and a two-hundred day moving average of $27.26. PPL Co. has a 12-month low of $22.20 and a 12-month high of $29.89. The company has a current ratio of 1.28, a quick ratio of 1.08 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.12. The stock has a market cap of $20.63 billion, a PE ratio of 27.15, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.41 and a beta of 0.82.

PPL (NYSE:PPL) last released its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, May 1st. The utilities provider reported $0.54 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.52 by $0.02. The business had revenue of $2.30 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $2.39 billion. PPL had a return on equity of 8.80% and a net margin of 9.29%. The company’s revenue was down 4.6% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm posted $0.48 EPS. On average, research analysts anticipate that PPL Co. will post 1.71 EPS for the current fiscal year.

PPL Dividend Announcement

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, July 1st. Stockholders of record on Monday, June 10th will be paid a dividend of $0.2575 per share. This represents a $1.03 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 3.68%. The ex-dividend date is Monday, June 10th. PPL’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 100.00%.

PPL Company Profile

PPL Corporation, an energy company, focuses on providing electricity and natural gas to approximately 3.6 million customers in the United States. It operates through three segments: Kentucky Regulated, Pennsylvania Regulated, and Rhode Island Regulated. The company delivers electricity to customers in Pennsylvania, Kentucky, Virginia, and Rhode Island; delivers natural gas to customers in Kentucky and Rhode Island; and generates electricity from power plants in Kentucky.