Flowers Foods, Inc. (NYSE:FLO) Shares Purchased by KBC Group NV

KBC Group NV grew its stake in shares of Flowers Foods, Inc. (NYSE:FLO) by 23.2% in the third quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The fund owned 6,044 shares of the company’s stock after buying an additional 1,140 shares during the quarter. KBC Group NV’s holdings in Flowers Foods were worth $139,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other large investors have also modified their holdings of the company. Cooke & Bieler LP grew its holdings in Flowers Foods by 73.1% in the second quarter. Cooke & Bieler LP now owns 5,301,518 shares of the company’s stock valued at $117,694,000 after purchasing an additional 2,239,592 shares during the period. AQR Capital Management LLC boosted its holdings in shares of Flowers Foods by 65.6% in the 2nd quarter. AQR Capital Management LLC now owns 1,314,556 shares of the company’s stock valued at $29,104,000 after purchasing an additional 520,661 shares during the last quarter. Cubist Systematic Strategies LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Flowers Foods during the 2nd quarter valued at $10,392,000. Ceredex Value Advisors LLC grew its stake in shares of Flowers Foods by 85.4% during the 3rd quarter. Ceredex Value Advisors LLC now owns 540,104 shares of the company’s stock valued at $12,460,000 after buying an additional 248,800 shares during the period. Finally, Renaissance Technologies LLC increased its holdings in shares of Flowers Foods by 4.3% during the 2nd quarter. Renaissance Technologies LLC now owns 5,851,682 shares of the company’s stock worth $129,907,000 after buying an additional 242,797 shares during the last quarter. 75.45% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Separately, StockNews.com cut Flowers Foods from a “strong-buy” rating to a “buy” rating in a report on Tuesday.

Flowers Foods Trading Up 0.5 %

Shares of FLO stock opened at $22.22 on Friday. The company has a quick ratio of 0.95, a current ratio of 1.24 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.75. Flowers Foods, Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $20.50 and a fifty-two week high of $26.12. The firm’s 50 day moving average price is $22.56 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $22.82. The stock has a market cap of $4.68 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 19.49, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 4.16 and a beta of 0.36.

Flowers Foods (NYSE:FLO) last posted its earnings results on Friday, November 8th. The company reported $0.33 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.30 by $0.03. Flowers Foods had a net margin of 4.70% and a return on equity of 19.41%. The business had revenue of $1.19 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.20 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business posted $0.29 EPS. The business’s quarterly revenue was down .7% on a year-over-year basis. On average, analysts anticipate that Flowers Foods, Inc. will post 1.27 EPS for the current year.

Flowers Foods Dividend Announcement

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, December 13th. Stockholders of record on Friday, November 29th will be given a $0.24 dividend. This represents a $0.96 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 4.32%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, November 29th. Flowers Foods’s payout ratio is 84.21%.

Flowers Foods Profile

Flowers Foods, Inc produces and markets packaged bakery food products in the United States. Its principal products include fresh breads, buns, rolls, snack items, bagels, English muffins, and tortillas, as well as frozen breads and rolls under the Nature's Own, Dave's Killer Bread, Wonder, Canyon Bakehouse, Mrs.