Lord Abbett & CO. LLC Grows Stake in Reliance, Inc. (NYSE:RS)

Lord Abbett & CO. LLC boosted its stake in Reliance, Inc. (NYSE:RS) by 7.0% during the fourth quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The institutional investor owned 319,609 shares of the industrial products company’s stock after buying an additional 20,774 shares during the quarter. Lord Abbett & CO. LLC’s holdings in Reliance were worth $86,058,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

A number of other hedge funds have also made changes to their positions in RS. Barclays PLC raised its holdings in Reliance by 10.7% in the 3rd quarter. Barclays PLC now owns 76,131 shares of the industrial products company’s stock valued at $22,017,000 after acquiring an additional 7,373 shares during the last quarter. World Investment Advisors LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Reliance in the 3rd quarter worth $4,600,000. Tidal Investments LLC raised its holdings in shares of Reliance by 10.3% during the 3rd quarter. Tidal Investments LLC now owns 7,396 shares of the industrial products company’s stock worth $2,139,000 after acquiring an additional 691 shares during the period. Franklin Resources Inc. boosted its position in shares of Reliance by 4.5% during the 3rd quarter. Franklin Resources Inc. now owns 112,065 shares of the industrial products company’s stock valued at $32,909,000 after acquiring an additional 4,821 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Principal Financial Group Inc. grew its holdings in shares of Reliance by 19.7% in the third quarter. Principal Financial Group Inc. now owns 472,730 shares of the industrial products company’s stock valued at $136,718,000 after purchasing an additional 77,937 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 79.26% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of research firms recently commented on RS. KeyCorp upped their price objective on Reliance from $321.00 to $327.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Monday, February 24th. Wolfe Research upgraded Reliance from an “underperform” rating to a “peer perform” rating in a report on Wednesday, January 8th. Four analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and two have issued a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, the company currently has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $319.00.

Insider Activity

In other news, CEO Karla R. Lewis sold 31,136 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, February 24th. The stock was sold at an average price of $300.52, for a total value of $9,356,990.72. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 90,230 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $27,115,919.60. The trade was a 25.65 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this link. Company insiders own 0.35% of the company’s stock.

Reliance Trading Up 0.7 %

RS opened at $285.03 on Friday. The business has a fifty day moving average price of $283.72 and a 200 day moving average price of $289.53. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.10, a current ratio of 3.21 and a quick ratio of 1.58. The stock has a market capitalization of $15.07 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 18.46 and a beta of 0.83. Reliance, Inc. has a 12 month low of $250.07 and a 12 month high of $326.87.

Reliance (NYSE:RS) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, April 23rd. The industrial products company reported $3.77 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.66 by $0.11. The business had revenue of $3.48 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $3.44 billion. Reliance had a net margin of 6.33% and a return on equity of 11.87%. Sell-side analysts expect that Reliance, Inc. will post 16.98 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Reliance Announces Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, June 6th. Stockholders of record on Friday, May 23rd will be given a dividend of $1.20 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, May 23rd. This represents a $4.80 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.68%. Reliance’s dividend payout ratio is currently 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.