Ken Bowles Sells 24,225 Shares of Smurfit Westrock Ltd (NYSE:SW) Stock

Smurfit Westrock Ltd (NYSE:SW) insider Ken Bowles sold 24,225 shares of the stock in a transaction on Wednesday, February 19th. The shares were sold at an average price of $55.06, for a total value of $1,333,828.50. Following the completion of the sale, the insider now owns 111,458 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $6,136,877.48. The trade was a 17.85 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website.

Smurfit Westrock Price Performance

Shares of NYSE:SW opened at $54.06 on Friday. Smurfit Westrock Ltd has a fifty-two week low of $38.55 and a fifty-two week high of $56.99. The business has a 50-day moving average of $53.61 and a two-hundred day moving average of $49.93. The stock has a market capitalization of $28.14 billion, a P/E ratio of 98.29 and a beta of 1.02. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.72, a current ratio of 1.37 and a quick ratio of 0.89.

Smurfit Westrock (NYSE:SW) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, February 12th. The company reported $0.34 earnings per share for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.67 by ($0.33). Smurfit Westrock had a return on equity of 6.16% and a net margin of 0.63%. On average, equities research analysts predict that Smurfit Westrock Ltd will post 3.25 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Smurfit Westrock Increases Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Tuesday, March 18th. Stockholders of record on Friday, February 14th will be paid a $0.4308 dividend. The ex-dividend date is Friday, February 14th. This is a positive change from Smurfit Westrock’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.30. This represents a $1.72 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 3.19%. Smurfit Westrock’s payout ratio is presently 312.73%.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Smurfit Westrock

A number of institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in the business. Vanguard Group Inc. increased its stake in shares of Smurfit Westrock by 1.1% in the fourth quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 78,871,259 shares of the company’s stock worth $4,249,613,000 after purchasing an additional 820,362 shares during the period. Norges Bank bought a new position in shares of Smurfit Westrock in the fourth quarter worth about $1,300,041,000. Nuveen Asset Management LLC increased its stake in shares of Smurfit Westrock by 51.6% in the fourth quarter. Nuveen Asset Management LLC now owns 20,720,312 shares of the company’s stock worth $1,115,996,000 after purchasing an additional 7,050,781 shares during the period. State Street Corp bought a new position in Smurfit Westrock during the third quarter valued at about $967,582,000. Finally, Capital Research Global Investors increased its stake in Smurfit Westrock by 1.8% during the fourth quarter. Capital Research Global Investors now owns 18,439,852 shares of the company’s stock valued at $993,170,000 after acquiring an additional 318,806 shares during the period. 83.38% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

SW has been the subject of a number of research analyst reports. Citigroup increased their target price on Smurfit Westrock from $61.00 to $62.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Monday, January 6th. Barclays lifted their price objective on Smurfit Westrock from $60.00 to $68.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Wednesday, December 11th. Royal Bank of Canada reissued an “outperform” rating and set a $58.00 price objective on shares of Smurfit Westrock in a research report on Friday, November 15th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. lifted their price objective on Smurfit Westrock from $65.00 to $69.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Friday, November 29th. Finally, Argus assumed coverage on Smurfit Westrock in a research report on Thursday, December 5th. They set a “buy” rating and a $62.00 price objective for the company. Two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and eight have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat.com, Smurfit Westrock currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $60.70.

About Smurfit Westrock

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.