Louisiana State Employees Retirement System Invests $1.88 Million in Moelis & Company (NYSE:MC)

Louisiana State Employees Retirement System bought a new position in Moelis & Company (NYSE:MC) in the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The institutional investor bought 33,400 shares of the asset manager’s stock, valued at approximately $1,875,000.

Several other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently modified their holdings of MC. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. boosted its holdings in Moelis & Company by 1,654.6% in the second quarter. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. now owns 4,807,979 shares of the asset manager’s stock valued at $217,994,000 after purchasing an additional 4,533,955 shares during the last quarter. State Street Corp boosted its holdings in Moelis & Company by 75.8% in the second quarter. State Street Corp now owns 2,402,137 shares of the asset manager’s stock valued at $108,913,000 after purchasing an additional 1,035,644 shares during the last quarter. BlackRock Inc. boosted its holdings in Moelis & Company by 16.2% in the second quarter. BlackRock Inc. now owns 6,239,113 shares of the asset manager’s stock valued at $282,881,000 after purchasing an additional 870,362 shares during the last quarter. Norges Bank purchased a new position in Moelis & Company in the fourth quarter valued at about $20,494,000. Finally, Healthcare of Ontario Pension Plan Trust Fund purchased a new position in Moelis & Company in the third quarter valued at about $16,924,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 91.53% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of brokerages recently commented on MC. UBS Group reduced their price target on Moelis & Company from $46.00 to $45.00 and set a “sell” rating for the company in a report on Tuesday, March 26th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. upped their price objective on Moelis & Company from $46.00 to $57.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Thursday, February 8th. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods restated a “market perform” rating and set a $56.00 price objective on shares of Moelis & Company in a research note on Monday, January 29th. The Goldman Sachs Group upgraded Moelis & Company from a “sell” rating to a “neutral” rating and upped their price objective for the company from $53.00 to $58.00 in a research note on Wednesday, March 13th. Finally, StockNews.com upgraded Moelis & Company from a “sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Thursday, February 8th. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating and five have assigned a hold rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $50.80.

Moelis & Company Trading Down 0.6 %

Shares of Moelis & Company stock opened at $50.97 on Friday. The business’s 50 day simple moving average is $54.49 and its 200-day simple moving average is $51.20. The stock has a market capitalization of $3.63 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of -141.58 and a beta of 1.35. Moelis & Company has a twelve month low of $33.87 and a twelve month high of $58.67.

Moelis & Company (NYSE:MC) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, February 7th. The asset manager reported ($0.06) earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of ($0.11) by $0.05. Moelis & Company had a negative return on equity of 3.82% and a negative net margin of 2.89%. The business had revenue of $214.90 million for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $197.98 million. During the same period in the prior year, the firm earned $0.33 EPS. The business’s quarterly revenue was up 3.7% on a year-over-year basis. Sell-side analysts predict that Moelis & Company will post 1.5 earnings per share for the current year.

Moelis & Company Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, March 28th. Investors of record on Tuesday, February 20th were given a $0.60 dividend. This represents a $2.40 annualized dividend and a yield of 4.71%. The ex-dividend date was Friday, February 16th. Moelis & Company’s dividend payout ratio is currently -666.67%.

Insider Activity at Moelis & Company

In other Moelis & Company news, CFO Joseph Simon sold 8,573 shares of the stock in a transaction on Thursday, February 29th. The stock was sold at an average price of $54.13, for a total transaction of $464,056.49. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. In other Moelis & Company news, CFO Joseph Simon sold 8,573 shares of the stock in a transaction on Thursday, February 29th. The stock was sold at an average price of $54.13, for a total transaction of $464,056.49. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, CEO Kenneth Moelis sold 128,277 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Wednesday, February 21st. The stock was sold at an average price of $52.60, for a total value of $6,747,370.20. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 161,810 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $8,511,206. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 375,185 shares of company stock worth $20,130,225 in the last three months. 6.96% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Moelis & Company Company Profile

Moelis & Company operates as an investment banking advisory firm. It offers advisory services in the areas of mergers and acquisitions, recapitalizations and restructurings, capital markets transactions, and other corporate finance matters, as well as strategic, capital structure, and private funds advisory.