Louisiana State Employees Retirement System Buys Shares of 15,200 Matthews International Co. (NASDAQ:MATW)

Louisiana State Employees Retirement System purchased a new stake in shares of Matthews International Co. (NASDAQ:MATW) in the 4th quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The firm purchased 15,200 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $557,000.

Other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also recently modified their holdings of the company. Campbell Capital Management Inc. bought a new position in shares of Matthews International during the fourth quarter valued at about $4,236,000. Great Lakes Advisors LLC bought a new position in shares of Matthews International during the third quarter valued at about $2,530,000. Deutsche Bank AG raised its stake in shares of Matthews International by 12.5% during the third quarter. Deutsche Bank AG now owns 17,270 shares of the company’s stock valued at $672,000 after acquiring an additional 1,914 shares during the last quarter. Allspring Global Investments Holdings LLC raised its stake in shares of Matthews International by 53.6% during the fourth quarter. Allspring Global Investments Holdings LLC now owns 470,016 shares of the company’s stock valued at $17,226,000 after acquiring an additional 163,984 shares during the last quarter. Finally, New York State Teachers Retirement System raised its stake in shares of Matthews International by 1.2% during the fourth quarter. New York State Teachers Retirement System now owns 63,068 shares of the company’s stock valued at $2,311,000 after acquiring an additional 735 shares during the last quarter. 83.08% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

MATW has been the subject of several recent analyst reports. B. Riley lowered their price objective on shares of Matthews International from $61.00 to $59.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research note on Monday, February 5th. StockNews.com downgraded shares of Matthews International from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Friday, February 9th.

Matthews International Price Performance

MATW stock opened at $27.15 on Monday. Matthews International Co. has a 1 year low of $25.42 and a 1 year high of $48.86. The company has a market cap of $833.02 million, a P/E ratio of 25.61 and a beta of 1.12. The firm has a 50-day moving average of $28.43 and a 200 day moving average of $32.66. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.69, a current ratio of 1.88 and a quick ratio of 1.15.

Matthews International (NASDAQ:MATW) last released its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, February 1st. The company reported $0.37 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, hitting analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.37. Matthews International had a net margin of 1.77% and a return on equity of 16.44%. The company had revenue of $449.99 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $437.77 million. On average, sell-side analysts forecast that Matthews International Co. will post 2.6 EPS for the current year.

Matthews International Announces Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, May 20th. Shareholders of record on Monday, May 6th will be issued a $0.24 dividend. This represents a $0.96 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 3.54%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, May 3rd. Matthews International’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 90.57%.

Matthews International Profile

Matthews International Corporation provides brand solutions, memorialization products, and industrial technologies worldwide. It operates through three segments: Memorialization, Industrial Technologies, and SGK Brand Solutions. The Memorialization segment provides bronze and granite memorials, upright granite memorials and monuments, concrete burial vaults, cremation memorialization products, granite benches, flower vases, crypt plates and letters, cremation urns, niche units, cemetery features, and statues, as well as bronze plaques, letters, emblems, vases, lights and photo ceramics, granite monuments, mausoleums, crypts, and flush memorials.