Nomura Holdings Inc. Purchases Shares of 76,936 Ingredion Incorporated (NYSE:INGR)

Nomura Holdings Inc. purchased a new stake in Ingredion Incorporated (NYSE:INGR) in the fourth quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The institutional investor purchased 76,936 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $10,583,000.

A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently bought and sold shares of INGR. Norges Bank acquired a new stake in Ingredion in the 4th quarter valued at about $96,012,000. Assetmark Inc. lifted its holdings in Ingredion by 38,341.7% in the 4th quarter. Assetmark Inc. now owns 509,352 shares of the company’s stock valued at $70,067,000 after acquiring an additional 508,027 shares during the last quarter. Hennessy Advisors Inc. acquired a new stake in Ingredion in the 4th quarter valued at about $58,642,000. Caisse DE Depot ET Placement DU Quebec lifted its stake in Ingredion by 327.2% during the fourth quarter. Caisse DE Depot ET Placement DU Quebec now owns 531,413 shares of the company’s stock valued at $73,101,000 after buying an additional 407,027 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Prudential Financial Inc. lifted its stake in Ingredion by 93.2% during the fourth quarter. Prudential Financial Inc. now owns 652,734 shares of the company’s stock valued at $89,790,000 after buying an additional 314,912 shares in the last quarter. 85.27% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other Ingredion news, SVP Larry Fernandes sold 2,400 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, May 7th. The stock was sold at an average price of $135.82, for a total transaction of $325,968.00. Following the transaction, the senior vice president now owns 31,996 shares in the company, valued at $4,345,696.72. This trade represents a 6.98% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. Also, CEO James P. Zallie sold 10,815 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred 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 transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 34,127 shares in the company, valued at approximately $4,295,906.76. This trade represents a 24.06% decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last quarter, insiders have sold 13,215 shares of company stock worth $1,687,360. Insiders own 2.30% of the company’s stock.

Ingredion Price Performance

NYSE INGR opened at $135.46 on Thursday. The company has a 50 day simple moving average of $132.01 and a 200-day simple moving average of $135.62. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.47, a current ratio of 2.62 and a quick ratio of 1.69. The firm has a market capitalization of $8.71 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 13.95, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.03 and a beta of 0.73. Ingredion Incorporated has a 52-week low of $111.54 and a 52-week high of $155.44.

Ingredion (NYSE:INGR) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, May 6th. The company reported $2.97 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.44 by $0.53. Ingredion had a net margin of 8.71% and a return on equity of 18.62%. The business had revenue of $1.81 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.84 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the firm earned $2.08 earnings per share. The firm’s revenue was down 3.7% compared to the same quarter last year. Equities research analysts predict that Ingredion Incorporated will post 11.14 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Ingredion Announces Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Tuesday, April 22nd. Investors of record on Tuesday, April 1st were issued a $0.80 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Tuesday, April 1st. This represents a $3.20 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 2.36%. Ingredion’s dividend payout ratio is currently 33.76%.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of analysts have commented on INGR shares. Oppenheimer reduced their price objective on shares of Ingredion from $167.00 to $155.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research note on Tuesday, April 22nd. UBS Group set a $155.00 price objective on shares of Ingredion in a research note on Tuesday, April 22nd. BMO Capital Markets reduced their price objective 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. Stephens reduced their price objective on shares of Ingredion from $155.00 to $150.00 and set an “equal weight” rating for the company in a research note on Wednesday, February 5th. Finally, StockNews.com lowered shares of Ingredion from a “strong-buy” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report on Thursday, February 6th. Three research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and three have assigned a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, Ingredion presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $152.20.

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.