PPL (NYSE:PPL) CEO Sells $5,184,000.00 in Stock

PPL Corporation (NYSE:PPL) CEO William Spencer Marshall sold 200,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Friday, July 10th. The shares were sold at an average price of $25.92, for a total value of $5,184,000.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer owned 2,703,115 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $70,064,740.80. The trade was a 6.89% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this link.

PPL Stock Down 1.5%

PPL opened at $35.83 on Friday. PPL Corporation has a 12 month low of $33.17 and a 12 month high of $40.10. The business has a 50-day moving average of $35.87 and a two-hundred day moving average of $36.79. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.27, a current ratio of 1.00 and a quick ratio of 0.88. The stock has a market capitalization of $26.96 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 21.85, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.48 and a beta of 0.57.

PPL (NYSE:PPL) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Friday, May 8th. The utilities provider reported $0.63 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.61 by $0.02. PPL had a net margin of 13.09% and a return on equity of 9.41%. The business had revenue of $2.77 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $2.51 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the firm posted $0.60 EPS. The company’s revenue was up 10.8% on a year-over-year basis. On average, research analysts expect that PPL Corporation will post 1.95 earnings per share for the current year.

PPL Announces Dividend

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, July 1st. Shareholders of record on Wednesday, June 10th were given a dividend of $0.285 per share. This represents a $1.14 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 3.2%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Wednesday, June 10th. PPL’s payout ratio is 69.51%.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of equities analysts have recently commented on PPL shares. Seaport Research Partners set a $42.00 target price on shares of PPL in a research note on Monday, April 20th. BMO Capital Markets lowered their price target on PPL from $40.00 to $39.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a report on Friday, June 5th. BTIG Research reissued a “buy” rating on shares of PPL in a research report on Thursday, June 4th. Barclays boosted their price objective on PPL from $39.00 to $41.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research note on Tuesday. Finally, Mizuho raised PPL to a “hold” rating in a research report on Friday, July 3rd. Ten analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and three have issued a Hold rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $41.92.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On PPL

Institutional investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Allied Private Wealth LLC purchased a new stake in shares of PPL during the second quarter worth about $42,000. Valeo Financial Advisors LLC increased its holdings in PPL by 21.4% during the 2nd quarter. Valeo Financial Advisors LLC now owns 7,378 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $268,000 after purchasing an additional 1,299 shares during the last quarter. GAMMA Investing LLC increased its holdings in PPL by 3.5% during the 2nd quarter. GAMMA Investing LLC now owns 28,131 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $1,023,000 after purchasing an additional 949 shares during the last quarter. Versant Capital Management Inc raised its position in shares of PPL by 128.0% in the 2nd quarter. Versant Capital Management Inc now owns 4,277 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $155,000 after purchasing an additional 2,401 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Parallel Advisors LLC raised its position in shares of PPL by 6.3% in the 1st quarter. Parallel Advisors LLC now owns 11,124 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $425,000 after purchasing an additional 660 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 76.99% of the company’s stock.

About PPL

PPL Corporation is an energy company that owns and operates electric transmission and distribution infrastructure and provides related customer services. The company’s core business centers on delivering electricity to residential, commercial and industrial customers through regulated utility operations, maintaining grid reliability, responding to outages and managing customer billing and account services.

PPL’s activities include construction and maintenance of distribution and transmission lines, meter and grid management, and programs to support energy efficiency and the interconnection of distributed resources.