Legal & General Group Plc Buys 471,415 Shares of Smurfit Westrock PLC $SW

Legal & General Group Plc increased its stake in Smurfit Westrock PLC (NYSE:SW) by 11.5% in the fourth quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The fund owned 4,587,987 shares of the company’s stock after purchasing an additional 471,415 shares during the period. Legal & General Group Plc’s holdings in Smurfit Westrock were worth $177,355,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently modified their holdings of the stock. International Private Wealth Advisors LLC lifted its stake in shares of Smurfit Westrock by 3.5% in the 4th quarter. International Private Wealth Advisors LLC now owns 7,152 shares of the company’s stock valued at $277,000 after acquiring an additional 245 shares during the last quarter. Benjamin Edwards Inc. lifted its stake in shares of Smurfit Westrock by 4.1% in the 2nd quarter. Benjamin Edwards Inc. now owns 6,776 shares of the company’s stock valued at $292,000 after acquiring an additional 264 shares during the last quarter. AXA S.A. lifted its stake in shares of Smurfit Westrock by 1.3% in the 2nd quarter. AXA S.A. now owns 22,283 shares of the company’s stock valued at $962,000 after acquiring an additional 285 shares during the last quarter. Mariner LLC lifted its stake in shares of Smurfit Westrock by 0.9% in the 3rd quarter. Mariner LLC now owns 31,906 shares of the company’s stock valued at $1,358,000 after acquiring an additional 294 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Creative Planning lifted its stake in shares of Smurfit Westrock by 5.0% in the 3rd quarter. Creative Planning now owns 7,082 shares of the company’s stock valued at $301,000 after acquiring an additional 338 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors own 83.38% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of equities research analysts have recently weighed in on the company. Truist Financial set a $50.00 target price on Smurfit Westrock in a research note on Friday, May 1st. UBS Group lowered their target price on Smurfit Westrock from $60.00 to $56.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research note on Monday, April 13th. Wells Fargo & Company lowered their target price on Smurfit Westrock from $55.00 to $50.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a research note on Friday, March 20th. Jefferies Financial Group set a $58.00 target price on Smurfit Westrock in a research note on Thursday, February 12th. Finally, Morgan Stanley reissued an “overweight” rating and issued a $57.00 target price on shares of Smurfit Westrock in a research note on Wednesday, May 6th. Eleven research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and two have assigned a Hold rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $53.00.

Smurfit Westrock Trading Up 1.9%

SW opened at $39.96 on Thursday. The business has a 50 day simple moving average of $39.87 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $40.45. The firm has a market capitalization of $20.96 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 55.50 and a beta of 0.95. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.73, a current ratio of 1.44 and a quick ratio of 0.95. Smurfit Westrock PLC has a one year low of $32.73 and a one year high of $52.65.

Smurfit Westrock (NYSE:SW) last released its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, April 30th. The company reported $0.33 EPS for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.36 by ($0.03). The business had revenue of $7.71 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $7.57 billion. Smurfit Westrock had a net margin of 1.22% and a return on equity of 4.96%. The company’s revenue for the quarter was up .7% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the company earned $0.74 EPS. Analysts predict that Smurfit Westrock PLC will post 2.32 EPS for the current year.

Smurfit Westrock Announces Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, June 10th. Shareholders of record on Friday, May 15th will be given a dividend of $0.4523 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, May 15th. This represents a $1.81 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 4.5%. Smurfit Westrock’s dividend payout ratio is presently 251.39%.

Smurfit Westrock Company Profile

Smurfit Westrock Plc, together with its subsidiaries, manufactures, distributes, and sells containerboard, corrugated containers, and other paper-based packaging products in Ireland and internationally. The company produces containerboard that it converts into corrugated containers or sells to third parties, as well as produces other types of paper, such as consumer packaging board, sack paper, graphic paper, solid board and graphic board, and other paper-based packaging products, such as consumer packaging, solid board packaging, paper sacks, and other packaging products, including bag-in-box.