Ninety One SA Pty Ltd Buys Shares of 145,854 Smurfit Westrock PLC $SW

Ninety One SA Pty Ltd bought a new position in shares of Smurfit Westrock PLC (NYSE:SW) in the 4th quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The fund bought 145,854 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $5,632,000.

A number of other hedge funds also recently made changes to their positions in SW. TD Waterhouse Canada Inc. grew its holdings in shares of Smurfit Westrock by 113.3% during the 3rd quarter. TD Waterhouse Canada Inc. now owns 640 shares of the company’s stock valued at $27,000 after purchasing an additional 340 shares during the last quarter. CYBER HORNET ETFs LLC bought a new position in Smurfit Westrock in the 2nd quarter valued at approximately $29,000. Root Financial Partners LLC acquired a new stake in Smurfit Westrock in the third quarter valued at approximately $33,000. Mather Group LLC. bought a new stake in shares of Smurfit Westrock during the third quarter worth $55,000. Finally, MUFG Securities EMEA plc bought a new stake in shares of Smurfit Westrock during the second quarter worth $63,000. 83.38% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several brokerages have recently issued reports on SW. Zacks Research downgraded shares of Smurfit Westrock from a “hold” rating to a “strong sell” rating in a report on Tuesday, April 7th. Truist Financial reduced their price objective on Smurfit Westrock from $60.00 to $53.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research report on Wednesday. The Goldman Sachs Group assumed coverage on Smurfit Westrock in a report on Tuesday, March 24th. They issued a “buy” rating and a $49.00 target price for the company. UBS Group dropped their target price on Smurfit Westrock from $60.00 to $56.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research report on Monday, April 13th. Finally, Citigroup cut their price target on Smurfit Westrock from $59.00 to $53.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research note on Tuesday. Eleven equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, one has assigned a Hold rating and one has issued a Sell rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, Smurfit Westrock has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $53.91.

Smurfit Westrock Price Performance

SW stock opened at $42.28 on Friday. The company has a market capitalization of $22.16 billion, a P/E ratio of 31.79 and a beta of 1.06. The company has a fifty day moving average price of $43.21 and a 200-day moving average price of $40.66. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.73, a quick ratio of 0.95 and a current ratio of 1.48. Smurfit Westrock PLC has a 52-week low of $32.73 and a 52-week high of $52.65.

Smurfit Westrock (NYSE:SW) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Friday, February 27th. The company reported $0.34 earnings per share for the quarter. The company had revenue of $7.58 billion for the quarter. Smurfit Westrock had a net margin of 2.24% and a return on equity of 6.10%. As a group, equities analysts expect that Smurfit Westrock PLC will post 3.25 EPS for the current year.

Smurfit Westrock Increases Dividend

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, March 18th. Shareholders of record on Tuesday, February 17th were given a $0.4523 dividend. This is a boost from Smurfit Westrock’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.43. The ex-dividend date was Tuesday, February 17th. This represents a $1.81 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 4.3%. Smurfit Westrock’s dividend payout ratio is presently 136.09%.

Insider Transactions at Smurfit Westrock

In related news, CFO Ken Bowles sold 10,000 shares of Smurfit Westrock stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, February 19th. The stock was sold at an average price of $51.26, for a total value of $512,600.00. Following the transaction, the chief financial officer directly owned 151,644 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $7,773,271.44. The trade was a 6.19% 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, CEO Anthony P. J. Smurfit sold 40,000 shares of Smurfit Westrock stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, February 19th. The stock was sold at an average price of $51.54, for a total value of $2,061,600.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer directly owned 1,642,610 shares in the company, valued at approximately $84,660,119.40. This represents a 2.38% decrease in their ownership of the stock. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. Insiders own 0.46% of the company’s stock.

Smurfit Westrock Profile

Smurfit Westrock Plc, together with its subsidiaries, manufactures, distributes, and sells containerboard, corrugated containers, and other paper-based packaging products in Ireland and internationally. The company produces containerboard that it converts into corrugated containers or sells to third parties, as well as produces other types of paper, such as consumer packaging board, sack paper, graphic paper, solid board and graphic board, and other paper-based packaging products, such as consumer packaging, solid board packaging, paper sacks, and other packaging products, including bag-in-box.