Illinois Municipal Retirement Fund Buys 7,018 Shares of Reliance, Inc. (NYSE:RS)

Illinois Municipal Retirement Fund raised its stake in Reliance, Inc. (NYSE:RS) by 18.2% in the fourth quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund owned 45,592 shares of the industrial products company’s stock after acquiring an additional 7,018 shares during the quarter. Illinois Municipal Retirement Fund’s holdings in Reliance were worth $12,276,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently made changes to their positions in the company. Quarry LP bought a new position in shares of Reliance in the third quarter worth about $41,000. Versant Capital Management Inc lifted its holdings in shares of Reliance by 157.8% in the fourth quarter. Versant Capital Management Inc now owns 214 shares of the industrial products company’s stock worth $58,000 after acquiring an additional 131 shares during the last quarter. Brooklyn Investment Group bought a new position in shares of Reliance in the third quarter worth about $78,000. UMB Bank n.a. lifted its holdings in shares of Reliance by 41.8% in the fourth quarter. UMB Bank n.a. now owns 353 shares of the industrial products company’s stock worth $95,000 after acquiring an additional 104 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Abound Wealth Management raised its holdings in Reliance by 35,700.0% in the 4th quarter. Abound Wealth Management now owns 358 shares of the industrial products company’s stock valued at $96,000 after buying an additional 357 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors own 79.26% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of brokerages recently issued reports on RS. Wolfe Research upgraded shares of Reliance from an “underperform” rating to a “peer perform” rating in a report on Wednesday, January 8th. The Goldman Sachs Group began coverage on shares of Reliance in a report on Monday, December 2nd. They issued a “neutral” rating and a $341.00 price objective for the company. Finally, KeyCorp raised their price objective on shares of Reliance from $321.00 to $327.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Monday. Five investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and two have assigned a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the company presently has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $329.17.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, CEO Karla R. Lewis sold 31,136 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, February 24th. The shares were sold at an average price of $300.52, for a total transaction of $9,356,990.72. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 90,230 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $27,115,919.60. This trade represents a 25.65 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available through this link. Company insiders own 0.69% of the company’s stock.

Reliance Stock Down 1.0 %

Reliance stock opened at $296.22 on Wednesday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.10, a quick ratio of 1.58 and a current ratio of 3.21. Reliance, Inc. has a 52-week low of $256.98 and a 52-week high of $342.20. The firm has a 50 day moving average price of $282.48 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $289.55. The firm has a market cap of $16.03 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 19.19 and a beta of 0.90.

Reliance (NYSE:RS) last released its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, February 19th. The industrial products company reported $2.22 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $2.74 by ($0.52). Reliance had a return on equity of 11.87% and a net margin of 6.33%. The firm had revenue of $3.13 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $3.04 billion. Equities analysts predict that Reliance, Inc. will post 16.98 EPS for the current year.

Reliance Increases Dividend

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, March 21st. Shareholders of record on Friday, March 7th will be issued a dividend of $1.20 per share. This is a positive change from Reliance’s previous quarterly dividend of $1.10. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, March 7th. This represents a $4.80 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.62%. Reliance’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 31.09%.

About Reliance

Reliance, Inc operates as a diversified metal solutions provider and the metals service center company in the United States, Canada, and internationally. The company distributes a line of approximately 100,000 metal products, including alloy, aluminum, brass, copper, carbon steel, stainless steel, titanium, and specialty steel products; and provides metals processing services to general manufacturing, non-residential construction, transportation, aerospace, energy, electronics and semiconductor fabrication, and heavy industries.