Fisher Asset Management LLC Purchases Shares of 3,585 W. R. Berkley Co. (NYSE:WRB)

Fisher Asset Management LLC acquired a new position in W. R. Berkley Co. (NYSE:WRB) during the 3rd quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The institutional investor acquired 3,585 shares of the insurance provider’s stock, valued at approximately $203,000.

A number of other large investors have also recently made changes to their positions in the stock. Kayne Anderson Rudnick Investment Management LLC raised its stake in W. R. Berkley by 0.7% during the 2nd quarter. Kayne Anderson Rudnick Investment Management LLC now owns 7,553,875 shares of the insurance provider’s stock worth $593,584,000 after acquiring an additional 54,530 shares during the period. Principal Financial Group Inc. raised its position in shares of W. R. Berkley by 211.3% during the 3rd quarter. Principal Financial Group Inc. now owns 3,674,171 shares of the insurance provider’s stock valued at $208,436,000 after purchasing an additional 2,493,758 shares during the period. APG Asset Management N.V. lifted its stake in shares of W. R. Berkley by 3.5% during the 2nd quarter. APG Asset Management N.V. now owns 2,698,311 shares of the insurance provider’s stock valued at $197,838,000 after buying an additional 92,242 shares in the last quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP boosted its holdings in W. R. Berkley by 7.4% in the 2nd quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 2,037,599 shares of the insurance provider’s stock worth $160,128,000 after buying an additional 139,588 shares during the period. Finally, 1832 Asset Management L.P. increased its stake in W. R. Berkley by 1.4% in the 2nd quarter. 1832 Asset Management L.P. now owns 1,929,931 shares of the insurance provider’s stock worth $151,654,000 after buying an additional 26,464 shares in the last quarter. 68.82% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several equities analysts have recently commented on the company. Jefferies Financial Group boosted their price objective on W. R. Berkley from $53.00 to $57.00 and gave the company a “hold” rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 9th. Truist Financial upped their price target on W. R. Berkley from $64.00 to $68.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Thursday, October 17th. Barclays started coverage on shares of W. R. Berkley in a research report on Wednesday, September 4th. They set an “underweight” rating and a $56.00 price objective on the stock. Evercore ISI upped their target price on shares of W. R. Berkley from $57.00 to $60.00 and gave the stock an “in-line” rating in a research report on Tuesday, October 22nd. Finally, StockNews.com upgraded shares of W. R. Berkley from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a report on Friday. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, five have issued a hold rating and seven have given a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $64.22.

W. R. Berkley Trading Down 0.6 %

WRB opened at $64.55 on Monday. The stock has a 50-day moving average of $59.41 and a 200 day moving average of $56.94. The company has a current ratio of 0.36, a quick ratio of 0.36 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.34. W. R. Berkley Co. has a 12 month low of $45.75 and a 12 month high of $65.49. The firm has a market cap of $24.60 billion, a P/E ratio of 16.54, a P/E/G ratio of 1.25 and a beta of 0.62.

W. R. Berkley (NYSE:WRB) last released its earnings results on Monday, October 21st. The insurance provider reported $0.93 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.92 by $0.01. The firm had revenue of $2.93 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $2.93 billion. W. R. Berkley had a return on equity of 20.41% and a net margin of 11.96%. The company’s revenue for the quarter was up 10.8% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company posted $0.90 EPS. As a group, research analysts forecast that W. R. Berkley Co. will post 3.94 EPS for the current year.

W. R. Berkley Announces Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, September 30th. Stockholders of record on Monday, September 23rd were issued a $0.08 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Monday, September 23rd. This represents a $0.32 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.50%. W. R. Berkley’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 8.20%.

W. R. Berkley 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.