Moelis & Company’s (MC) Market Perform Rating Reiterated at Keefe, Bruyette & Woods

Keefe, Bruyette & Woods reissued their market perform rating on shares of Moelis & Company (NYSE:MC) in a report published on Thursday morning, Benzinga reports. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods currently has a $54.00 price objective on the asset manager’s stock, down from their previous price objective of $58.00.

Several other equities analysts also recently weighed in on MC. JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised their price target on Moelis & Company from $46.00 to $57.00 and gave the stock a neutral rating in a research report on Thursday, February 8th. UBS Group cut their target price on shares of Moelis & Company from $46.00 to $45.00 and set a sell rating for the company in a research note on Tuesday, March 26th. StockNews.com raised shares of Moelis & Company from a sell rating to a hold rating in a research note on Thursday, February 8th. JMP Securities reissued a market perform rating on shares of Moelis & Company in a research report on Tuesday, April 9th. Finally, The Goldman Sachs Group upgraded shares of Moelis & Company from a sell rating to a neutral rating and raised their target price for the stock from $53.00 to $58.00 in a research report on Wednesday, March 13th. Two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating and five have issued a hold rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Moelis & Company currently has a consensus rating of Hold and an average target price of $50.80.

Moelis & Company Trading Down 1.0 %

Shares of NYSE MC opened at $49.75 on Thursday. The company’s 50-day moving average price is $54.07 and its 200 day moving average price is $51.64. Moelis & Company has a 52 week low of $33.87 and a 52 week high of $58.67. The stock has a market cap of $3.54 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of -261.84 and a beta of 1.35.

Moelis & Company (NYSE:MC) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, April 24th. The asset manager reported $0.22 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.11 by $0.11. Moelis & Company had a negative net margin of 1.33% and a negative return on equity of 0.13%. The company had revenue of $217.49 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $219.30 million. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm earned $0.05 earnings per share. The company’s revenue for the quarter was up 17.4% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, research analysts expect that Moelis & Company will post 1.29 earnings per share for the current year.

Moelis & Company Announces Dividend

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, June 20th. Shareholders of record on Monday, May 6th will be issued a $0.60 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, May 3rd. This represents a $2.40 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 4.82%. Moelis & Company’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently -1,263.16%.

Insider Transactions at Moelis & Company

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

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in MC. Mutual of America Capital Management LLC grew its position in Moelis & Company by 26.8% in the fourth quarter. Mutual of America Capital Management LLC now owns 96,568 shares of the asset manager’s stock valued at $5,420,000 after acquiring an additional 20,413 shares in the last quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. boosted its stake in shares of Moelis & Company by 5.7% in the third quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 792,729 shares of the asset manager’s stock valued at $35,776,000 after purchasing an additional 42,424 shares during the period. Teza Capital Management LLC boosted its stake in shares of Moelis & Company by 75.7% in the third quarter. Teza Capital Management LLC now owns 32,538 shares of the asset manager’s stock valued at $1,468,000 after purchasing an additional 14,016 shares during the period. HighTower Advisors LLC grew its holdings in Moelis & Company by 3.2% during the 3rd quarter. HighTower Advisors LLC now owns 1,111,200 shares of the asset manager’s stock valued at $50,144,000 after purchasing an additional 34,740 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Vanguard Group Inc. increased its stake in Moelis & Company by 0.4% during the 3rd quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 7,787,483 shares of the asset manager’s stock worth $351,449,000 after buying an additional 28,446 shares during the period. 91.53% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

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.