W. R. Berkley Co. (NYSE:WRB) Shares Acquired by Public Sector Pension Investment Board

Public Sector Pension Investment Board lifted its position in W. R. Berkley Co. (NYSE:WRB) by 6.4% in the second quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The firm owned 34,132 shares of the insurance provider’s stock after acquiring an additional 2,060 shares during the period. Public Sector Pension Investment Board’s holdings in W. R. Berkley were worth $2,682,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission.

Other hedge funds have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. EverSource Wealth Advisors LLC grew its position in shares of W. R. Berkley by 61.7% during the second quarter. EverSource Wealth Advisors LLC now owns 8,079 shares of the insurance provider’s stock worth $635,000 after acquiring an additional 3,083 shares during the last quarter. Fidelis Capital Partners LLC grew its position in W. R. Berkley by 71.0% during the 2nd quarter. Fidelis Capital Partners LLC now owns 4,107 shares of the insurance provider’s stock worth $323,000 after purchasing an additional 1,705 shares during the last quarter. 1832 Asset Management L.P. increased its stake in W. R. Berkley by 1.4% in the second quarter. 1832 Asset Management L.P. now owns 1,929,931 shares of the insurance provider’s stock valued at $151,654,000 after purchasing an additional 26,464 shares during the period. Frank Rimerman Advisors LLC purchased a new stake in shares of W. R. Berkley in the second quarter valued at about $817,000. Finally, Prospector Partners LLC boosted its stake in shares of W. R. Berkley by 0.7% during the second quarter. Prospector Partners LLC now owns 94,130 shares of the insurance provider’s stock worth $7,397,000 after buying an additional 690 shares during the period. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 68.82% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several equities analysts recently issued reports on the company. Barclays assumed coverage on W. R. Berkley in a research report on Wednesday, September 4th. They issued an “underweight” rating and a $56.00 price target on the stock. TD Cowen started coverage on W. R. Berkley in a research note on Monday, July 1st. They set a “buy” rating and a $103.00 price target for the company. The Goldman Sachs Group lowered shares of W. R. Berkley from a “buy” rating to a “neutral” rating and lowered their price objective for the company from $88.00 to $83.00 in a research report on Thursday, June 13th. Royal Bank of Canada reissued a “sector perform” rating and issued a $57.00 price objective on shares of W. R. Berkley in a research note on Tuesday, July 23rd. Finally, StockNews.com upgraded shares of W. R. Berkley from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research note on Wednesday. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, five have issued a hold rating and five have issued a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company presently has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $77.70.

W. R. Berkley Stock Down 0.4 %

WRB stock opened at $56.51 on Friday. The company has a current ratio of 0.38, a quick ratio of 0.38 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.36. The company’s 50-day moving average price is $56.99 and its 200 day moving average price is $72.20. W. R. Berkley Co. has a 52 week low of $41.37 and a 52 week high of $61.28. The company has a market cap of $21.67 billion, a P/E ratio of 15.03, a P/E/G ratio of 1.05 and a beta of 0.62.

W. R. Berkley (NYSE:WRB) last released its quarterly earnings results on Monday, July 22nd. The insurance provider reported $1.04 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.92 by $0.12. The business had revenue of $3.31 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $2.84 billion. W. R. Berkley had a return on equity of 21.34% and a net margin of 12.05%. The company’s revenue was up 10.6% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm posted $1.14 EPS. On average, research analysts expect that W. R. Berkley Co. will post 4.03 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

W. R. Berkley Announces Dividend

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, September 30th. Stockholders of record on Monday, September 23rd will be paid a dividend of $0.08 per share. This represents a $0.32 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.57%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Monday, September 23rd. W. R. Berkley’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 8.51%.

W. R. Berkley Company Profile

W. R. Berkley Corporation, an insurance holding company, operates as a commercial lines writers worldwide. It operates in two segments, Insurance and Reinsurance & Monoline Excess. The Insurance segment underwrites commercial insurance business, including excess and surplus lines, admitted lines, and specialty personal lines.