Millstone Evans Group LLC Purchases New Holdings in Ingredion Incorporated (NYSE:INGR)

Millstone Evans Group LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Ingredion Incorporated (NYSE:INGR) during the 4th quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The fund purchased 400 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $55,000.

Several other hedge funds also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. State Street Corp grew its holdings in Ingredion by 0.8% during the 3rd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 2,436,601 shares of the company’s stock valued at $334,862,000 after purchasing an additional 19,560 shares during the last quarter. Pacer Advisors Inc. grew its stake in Ingredion by 16.5% in the 4th quarter. Pacer Advisors Inc. now owns 1,890,488 shares of the company’s stock worth $260,056,000 after acquiring an additional 268,389 shares in the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC grew its stake in Ingredion by 1.7% in the 3rd quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 1,167,693 shares of the company’s stock worth $160,516,000 after acquiring an additional 19,064 shares in the last quarter. Allianz Asset Management GmbH grew its stake in Ingredion by 11.9% in the 4th quarter. Allianz Asset Management GmbH now owns 842,763 shares of the company’s stock worth $115,930,000 after acquiring an additional 89,335 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Principal Financial Group Inc. grew its stake in Ingredion by 3.9% in the 4th quarter. Principal Financial Group Inc. now owns 753,680 shares of the company’s stock worth $103,675,000 after acquiring an additional 28,306 shares in the last quarter. 85.27% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of brokerages have commented on INGR. Oppenheimer dropped their target price on shares of Ingredion from $178.00 to $167.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a research note on Wednesday, February 5th. Stephens dropped their price objective on shares of Ingredion from $155.00 to $150.00 and set an “equal weight” rating on the stock in a research note on Wednesday, February 5th. StockNews.com downgraded shares of Ingredion from a “strong-buy” rating to a “buy” rating in a research note on Thursday, February 6th. Finally, BMO Capital Markets lowered their target price on shares of Ingredion from $147.00 to $133.00 and set a “market perform” rating for the company in a research note on Wednesday, February 5th. Two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and four have given a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $158.20.

Ingredion Trading Down 1.1 %

NYSE:INGR opened at $130.32 on Monday. Ingredion Incorporated has a 12 month low of $109.51 and a 12 month high of $155.44. The firm has a fifty day simple moving average of $131.51 and a 200-day simple moving average of $136.51. The company has a current ratio of 2.62, a quick ratio of 1.69 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.47. The company has a market capitalization of $8.36 billion, a P/E ratio of 13.42, a PEG ratio of 1.03 and a beta of 0.75.

Ingredion (NYSE:INGR) last issued its earnings results on Tuesday, February 4th. The company reported $2.63 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $2.54 by $0.09. Ingredion had a net margin of 8.71% and a return on equity of 18.62%. The firm had revenue of $1.80 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $1.82 billion. During the same quarter last year, the company posted $1.65 earnings per share. The firm’s revenue was down 6.3% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, equities research analysts anticipate that Ingredion Incorporated will post 11.14 earnings per share for the current year.

Ingredion Dividend Announcement

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Tuesday, April 22nd. Shareholders of record on Tuesday, April 1st will be issued a $0.80 dividend. The ex-dividend date is Tuesday, April 1st. This represents a $3.20 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 2.46%. Ingredion’s payout ratio is 32.96%.

Insider Buying and Selling at Ingredion

In other Ingredion news, CEO James P. Zallie sold 10,815 shares of Ingredion stock in a transaction on Wednesday, February 19th. The shares were sold at an average price of $125.88, for a total value of $1,361,392.20. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 34,127 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $4,295,906.76. The trade was a 24.06 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this link. 1.80% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Ingredion Profile

Ingredion Incorporated, together with its subsidiaries, manufactures and sells sweeteners, starches, nutrition ingredients, and biomaterial solutions derived from wet milling and processing corn, and other starch-based materials to a range of industries in North America, South America, the Asia Pacific, Europe, the Middle East, and Africa.