Loomis Sayles & Co. L P Invests $63,000 in Verisk Analytics, Inc. (NASDAQ:VRSK)

Loomis Sayles & Co. L P bought a new stake in Verisk Analytics, Inc. (NASDAQ:VRSK) in the 4th quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The institutional investor bought 229 shares of the business services provider’s stock, valued at approximately $63,000.

A number of other institutional investors have also added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Sanctuary Advisors LLC lifted its position in shares of Verisk Analytics by 188.2% in the 3rd quarter. Sanctuary Advisors LLC now owns 25,637 shares of the business services provider’s stock worth $7,454,000 after acquiring an additional 16,742 shares during the period. Aaron Wealth Advisors LLC acquired a new position in shares of Verisk Analytics in the fourth quarter valued at $212,000. Point72 Hong Kong Ltd lifted its position in Verisk Analytics by 479.1% in the third quarter. Point72 Hong Kong Ltd now owns 16,853 shares of the business services provider’s stock worth $4,516,000 after purchasing an additional 13,943 shares during the period. Royal London Asset Management Ltd. boosted its stake in Verisk Analytics by 16.9% during the third quarter. Royal London Asset Management Ltd. now owns 63,217 shares of the business services provider’s stock worth $16,940,000 after buying an additional 9,145 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Norris Perne & French LLP MI increased its holdings in Verisk Analytics by 1.9% in the 4th quarter. Norris Perne & French LLP MI now owns 61,889 shares of the business services provider’s stock valued at $17,046,000 after buying an additional 1,126 shares during the period. 90.00% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Insider Activity at Verisk Analytics

In other news, Director Bruce Edward Hansen sold 1,179 shares of Verisk Analytics stock in a transaction on Tuesday, January 7th. The stock was sold at an average price of $272.81, for a total value of $321,642.99. Following the completion of the sale, the director now directly owns 13,786 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $3,760,958.66. This trade represents a 7.88 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Also, insider Kathy Card Beckles sold 2,111 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Friday, January 17th. The stock was sold at an average price of $282.06, for a total value of $595,428.66. Following the sale, the insider now owns 9,066 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $2,557,155.96. The trade was a 18.89 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 5,648 shares of company stock valued at $1,613,047 over the last quarter. Corporate insiders own 0.40% of the company’s stock.

Verisk Analytics Trading Down 0.8 %

VRSK stock opened at $294.58 on Monday. The business has a fifty day moving average price of $290.81 and a 200 day moving average price of $281.46. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 8.36, a current ratio of 0.82 and a quick ratio of 0.82. Verisk Analytics, Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $217.34 and a fifty-two week high of $306.10. The stock has a market capitalization of $41.32 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 45.96, a P/E/G ratio of 3.37 and a beta of 0.89.

Verisk Analytics (NASDAQ:VRSK) last announced its earnings results on Wednesday, February 26th. The business services provider reported $1.61 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.60 by $0.01. The company had revenue of $735.60 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $733.55 million. Verisk Analytics had a return on equity of 274.13% and a net margin of 32.65%. Analysts expect that Verisk Analytics, Inc. will post 6.63 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Verisk Analytics declared that its Board of Directors has initiated a stock repurchase plan on Wednesday, February 26th that allows the company to repurchase $1.00 billion in outstanding shares. This repurchase authorization allows the business services provider to buy up to 2.5% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares repurchase plans are often a sign that the company’s management believes its shares are undervalued.

Verisk Analytics Increases Dividend

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, March 31st. Stockholders of record on Friday, March 14th will be paid a dividend of $0.45 per share. This is a boost from Verisk Analytics’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.39. This represents a $1.80 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.61%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, March 14th. Verisk Analytics’s dividend payout ratio is 26.87%.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of equities analysts have recently commented on VRSK shares. BMO Capital Markets raised their price objective on shares of Verisk Analytics from $280.00 to $297.00 and gave the stock a “market perform” rating in a report on Thursday, February 27th. Barclays downgraded Verisk Analytics from an “overweight” rating to an “equal weight” rating and set a $310.00 price objective on the stock. in a report on Friday, January 10th. Robert W. Baird increased their target price on Verisk Analytics from $298.00 to $320.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Thursday, February 27th. Wells Fargo & Company decreased their price target on Verisk Analytics from $325.00 to $321.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a research note on Thursday, February 27th. Finally, Royal Bank of Canada reiterated an “outperform” rating and set a $300.00 price objective on shares of Verisk Analytics in a research note on Tuesday, January 7th. Six analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and three have issued a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, Verisk Analytics currently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $299.33.

Verisk Analytics Company Profile

Verisk Analytics, Inc provides data analytics and technology solutions to the insurance markets in the United States and internationally. It offers policy language, prospective loss costs, policy writing and rating rules, and various underwriting solutions for risk selection and segmentation, pricing, and workflow optimization; property- and auto- specific rating and underwriting information solutions that allows clients to understand, quantify, underwrite, mitigate, and avoid potential loss for risks; catastrophe modeling solutions, which enables companies to identify, quantify, and plan for the financial consequences of catastrophes for use by insurers, reinsurers, intermediaries, financial institutions, and governments.