Vontobel Holding Ltd. Acquires Shares of 3,560 W. R. Berkley Co. (NYSE:WRB)

Vontobel Holding Ltd. bought a new position in W. R. Berkley Co. (NYSE:WRB) in the 3rd quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The firm bought 3,560 shares of the insurance provider’s stock, valued at approximately $202,000.

A number of other institutional investors have also made changes to their positions in WRB. MJP Associates Inc. ADV increased its stake in W. R. Berkley by 4.0% during the second quarter. MJP Associates Inc. ADV now owns 4,915 shares of the insurance provider’s stock valued at $386,000 after purchasing an additional 188 shares during the last quarter. Atria Investments Inc grew its position in shares of W. R. Berkley by 0.4% during the 1st quarter. Atria Investments Inc now owns 50,637 shares of the insurance provider’s stock valued at $4,478,000 after buying an additional 189 shares during the last quarter. Kiely Wealth Advisory Group Inc. raised its stake in W. R. Berkley by 49.9% during the second quarter. Kiely Wealth Advisory Group Inc. now owns 580 shares of the insurance provider’s stock worth $46,000 after acquiring an additional 193 shares during the period. AdvisorNet Financial Inc lifted its holdings in W. R. Berkley by 15.9% in the first quarter. AdvisorNet Financial Inc now owns 1,436 shares of the insurance provider’s stock worth $127,000 after acquiring an additional 197 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Caprock Group LLC boosted its stake in W. R. Berkley by 5.9% in the first quarter. Caprock Group LLC now owns 3,612 shares of the insurance provider’s stock valued at $320,000 after acquiring an additional 202 shares during the period. 68.82% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several brokerages recently issued reports on WRB. TD Cowen started coverage on W. R. Berkley in a report on Monday, July 1st. They issued a “buy” rating and a $68.67 price target on the stock. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods cut their target price on W. R. Berkley from $59.00 to $58.00 and set a “market perform” rating on the stock in a research note on Tuesday. Evercore ISI increased their price objective on shares of W. R. Berkley from $57.00 to $60.00 and gave the stock an “in-line” rating in a report on Tuesday. Barclays assumed coverage on shares of W. R. Berkley in a research note on Wednesday, September 4th. They set an “underweight” rating and a $56.00 target price for the company. Finally, UBS Group raised their price target on shares of W. R. Berkley from $67.00 to $69.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Tuesday. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, seven have assigned a hold rating and five have issued a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock has an average rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $63.08.

W. R. Berkley Price Performance

NYSE WRB opened at $59.13 on Thursday. W. R. Berkley Co. has a 12 month low of $43.20 and a 12 month high of $61.96. The firm has a market capitalization of $22.68 billion, a PE ratio of 15.73, a P/E/G ratio of 1.07 and a beta of 0.62. The company’s 50 day simple moving average is $58.32 and its 200 day simple moving average is $55.57. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.36, a current ratio of 0.38 and a quick ratio of 0.38.

W. R. Berkley (NYSE:WRB) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Monday, October 21st. The insurance provider reported $0.93 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.92 by $0.01. The company 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 21.34% and a net margin of 12.05%. The company’s quarterly revenue was up 10.8% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business earned $0.90 EPS. As a group, equities research analysts forecast that W. R. Berkley Co. will post 4.02 EPS for the current fiscal year.

W. R. Berkley Announces Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, September 30th. Stockholders of record on Monday, September 23rd were paid 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 0.54%. W. R. Berkley’s dividend payout ratio is currently 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.