Pitcairn Co. Increases Stake in Arthur J. Gallagher & Co. (NYSE:AJG)

Pitcairn Co. lifted its stake in Arthur J. Gallagher & Co. (NYSE:AJG) by 8.3% during the 4th quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The institutional investor owned 2,064 shares of the financial services provider’s stock after buying an additional 159 shares during the quarter. Pitcairn Co.’s holdings in Arthur J. Gallagher & Co. were worth $586,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also recently modified their holdings of the stock. Norges Bank purchased a new stake in Arthur J. Gallagher & Co. in the 4th quarter worth $1,421,591,000. Vanguard Group Inc. grew its position in shares of Arthur J. Gallagher & Co. by 14.9% during the fourth quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 29,672,134 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $8,422,435,000 after purchasing an additional 3,851,661 shares in the last quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP increased its holdings in shares of Arthur J. Gallagher & Co. by 162.0% in the fourth quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP now owns 2,822,319 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $801,115,000 after purchasing an additional 1,745,283 shares during the last quarter. Principal Financial Group Inc. lifted its position in shares of Arthur J. Gallagher & Co. by 126.2% in the fourth quarter. Principal Financial Group Inc. now owns 2,003,237 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $568,619,000 after buying an additional 1,117,441 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Geode Capital Management LLC boosted its stake in Arthur J. Gallagher & Co. by 14.3% during the fourth quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 6,277,993 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $1,779,248,000 after buying an additional 787,265 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors own 85.53% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of research firms have issued reports on AJG. Wells Fargo & Company lifted their price objective on Arthur J. Gallagher & Co. from $341.00 to $370.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research note on Friday, March 21st. TD Cowen upgraded shares of Arthur J. Gallagher & Co. from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and boosted their price target for the stock from $295.00 to $377.00 in a research report on Friday, January 10th. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods increased their price objective on shares of Arthur J. Gallagher & Co. from $308.00 to $314.00 and gave the company a “market perform” rating in a research report on Friday, March 21st. Royal Bank of Canada upped their target price on shares of Arthur J. Gallagher & Co. from $320.00 to $340.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Friday, January 31st. Finally, Truist Financial lifted their price target on Arthur J. Gallagher & Co. from $275.00 to $290.00 and gave the stock a “hold” rating in a research report on Friday, January 31st. Two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, seven have given a hold rating and six have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, Arthur J. Gallagher & Co. has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $313.20.

Arthur J. Gallagher & Co. Stock Performance

Shares of Arthur J. Gallagher & Co. stock opened at $318.97 on Friday. The company has a quick ratio of 1.51, a current ratio of 1.51 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.63. The stock’s fifty day moving average is $326.40 and its two-hundred day moving average is $302.45. Arthur J. Gallagher & Co. has a 52 week low of $230.08 and a 52 week high of $350.70. The company has a market capitalization of $81.57 billion, a PE ratio of 48.92 and a beta of 0.75.

Arthur J. Gallagher & Co. (NYSE:AJG) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, January 30th. The financial services provider reported $2.13 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $2.03 by $0.10. Arthur J. Gallagher & Co. had a net margin of 12.70% and a return on equity of 16.47%. As a group, analysts expect that Arthur J. Gallagher & Co. will post 11.54 earnings per share for the current year.

Arthur J. Gallagher & Co. Increases Dividend

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, March 21st. Investors of record on Friday, March 7th were issued a $0.65 dividend. This is a positive change from Arthur J. Gallagher & Co.’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.60. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Friday, March 7th. This represents a $2.60 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.82%. Arthur J. Gallagher & Co.’s payout ratio is presently 39.88%.

Insider Buying and Selling

In related news, Director Sherry S. Barrat sold 2,500 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, February 3rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $304.33, for a total value of $760,825.00. Following the completion of the sale, the director now directly owns 16,533 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $5,031,487.89. This represents a 13.14 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. Also, CAO Richard C. Cary sold 10,000 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, February 10th. The shares were sold at an average price of $322.99, for a total transaction of $3,229,900.00. Following the transaction, the chief accounting officer now directly owns 69,774 shares in the company, valued at $22,536,304.26. This trade represents a 12.54 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 23,235 shares of company stock valued at $7,478,224 over the last quarter. 1.60% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Arthur J. Gallagher & Co. Profile

Arthur J. Gallagher & Co engages in the provision of insurance brokerage, reinsurance brokerage, consulting, and third-party claims settlement and administration services. It operates through the following segments: Brokerage, Risk Management, and Corporate. The Brokerage segment consists of retail and wholesale insurance brokerage operations.