Lafayette Investments Inc. Acquires 89 Shares of Aon plc $AON

Lafayette Investments Inc. boosted its holdings in shares of Aon plc (NYSE:AON) by 1.4% in the 2nd quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The firm owned 6,633 shares of the financial services provider’s stock after buying an additional 89 shares during the quarter. Lafayette Investments Inc.’s holdings in AON were worth $2,366,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other hedge funds have also recently modified their holdings of the business. Vanguard Group Inc. increased its position in AON by 1.3% in the first quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 19,778,451 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $7,893,382,000 after buying an additional 258,699 shares in the last quarter. Bank of New York Mellon Corp increased its holdings in AON by 18.3% in the 1st quarter. Bank of New York Mellon Corp now owns 3,034,062 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $1,210,864,000 after acquiring an additional 469,238 shares in the last quarter. Polen Capital Management LLC lifted its holdings in AON by 318.1% during the first quarter. Polen Capital Management LLC now owns 3,007,719 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $1,200,350,000 after purchasing an additional 2,288,397 shares in the last quarter. Mitsubishi UFJ Asset Management Co. Ltd. boosted its position in shares of AON by 2.6% in the first quarter. Mitsubishi UFJ Asset Management Co. Ltd. now owns 2,390,571 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $954,053,000 after purchasing an additional 61,350 shares during the period. Finally, Northern Trust Corp raised its position in shares of AON by 6.1% during the 1st quarter. Northern Trust Corp now owns 2,290,619 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $914,163,000 after purchasing an additional 131,676 shares during the period. Institutional investors own 86.14% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of research firms have recently weighed in on AON. Wells Fargo & Company dropped their price objective on AON from $451.00 to $448.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a research note on Wednesday, October 8th. TD Cowen reduced their price objective on shares of AON from $427.00 to $419.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research report on Wednesday, September 17th. Evercore ISI raised their target price on shares of AON from $421.00 to $427.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Wednesday, October 1st. JPMorgan Chase & Co. decreased their price target on shares of AON from $436.00 to $433.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a research note on Thursday, October 9th. Finally, Cantor Fitzgerald upgraded AON to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Wednesday, August 13th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, eleven have assigned a Buy rating and five have given a Hold rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, AON has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $420.00.

AON Stock Down 0.7%

Shares of AON opened at $344.30 on Tuesday. The firm has a fifty day moving average price of $362.79 and a 200-day moving average price of $360.75. The company has a current ratio of 1.52, a quick ratio of 1.52 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.93. The firm has a market capitalization of $74.24 billion, a P/E ratio of 28.84, a P/E/G ratio of 2.04 and a beta of 0.89. Aon plc has a 12-month low of $323.73 and a 12-month high of $412.97.

AON (NYSE:AON) last released its quarterly earnings data on Friday, July 25th. The financial services provider reported $3.49 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $3.40 by $0.09. AON had a net margin of 15.54% and a return on equity of 50.91%. The company had revenue of $4.16 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $4.16 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the company earned $2.93 EPS. The firm’s quarterly revenue was up 10.5% on a year-over-year basis. Equities research analysts expect that Aon plc will post 17.21 earnings per share for the current year.

AON Announces Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, November 14th. Shareholders of record on Monday, November 3rd will be given a dividend of $0.745 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Monday, November 3rd. This represents a $2.98 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.9%. AON’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 24.96%.

About AON

Aon Plc engages in the provision of risk, health, and wealth solutions. It focuses on risk capital including claim management, reinsurance, risk analysis, management, retention, and transfer; and human capital involving analytics, health and benefits, investments, pensions and retirement, talent and rewards, and workplace wellbeing.