Zurcher Kantonalbank Zurich Cantonalbank Grows Position in Griffon Co. (NYSE:GFF)

Zurcher Kantonalbank Zurich Cantonalbank grew its stake in shares of Griffon Co. (NYSE:GFF) by 17.0% in the fourth quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The firm owned 7,327 shares of the conglomerate’s stock after buying an additional 1,062 shares during the quarter. Zurcher Kantonalbank Zurich Cantonalbank’s holdings in Griffon were worth $447,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other institutional investors have also recently made changes to their positions in the stock. Vanguard Group Inc. raised its holdings in shares of Griffon by 1.3% during the third quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 5,952,411 shares of the conglomerate’s stock valued at $236,132,000 after acquiring an additional 77,058 shares in the last quarter. Pacer Advisors Inc. raised its holdings in shares of Griffon by 22.1% during the fourth quarter. Pacer Advisors Inc. now owns 1,598,353 shares of the conglomerate’s stock valued at $97,420,000 after acquiring an additional 289,208 shares in the last quarter. Raymond James & Associates raised its holdings in shares of Griffon by 22.6% during the fourth quarter. Raymond James & Associates now owns 529,181 shares of the conglomerate’s stock valued at $32,254,000 after acquiring an additional 97,390 shares in the last quarter. Primecap Management Co. CA raised its holdings in Griffon by 32.5% in the third quarter. Primecap Management Co. CA now owns 221,700 shares of the conglomerate’s stock worth $8,795,000 after purchasing an additional 54,400 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Qube Research & Technologies Ltd bought a new position in Griffon in the third quarter worth $6,316,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 73.22% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of equities analysts have issued reports on GFF shares. Raymond James increased their price objective on Griffon from $60.00 to $75.00 and gave the stock a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Monday, February 5th. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft increased their price objective on Griffon from $72.00 to $82.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Monday, January 22nd. Robert W. Baird increased their price objective on Griffon from $82.00 to $84.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Thursday, April 18th. Finally, StockNews.com upgraded Griffon from a “buy” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Thursday. Two analysts have rated the stock with a buy rating and two have assigned a strong buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock has a consensus rating of “Strong Buy” and a consensus price target of $69.50.

Insider Activity

In other Griffon news, Director James W. Sight sold 2,000 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Thursday, February 8th. The stock was sold at an average price of $67.38, for a total value of $134,760.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the director now owns 18,843 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $1,269,641.34. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available through this link. Corporate insiders own 16.10% of the company’s stock.

Griffon Price Performance

Shares of NYSE:GFF opened at $69.13 on Friday. Griffon Co. has a 1-year low of $29.11 and a 1-year high of $75.18. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 5.02, a current ratio of 2.46 and a quick ratio of 1.24. The business has a fifty day moving average price of $69.69 and a 200-day moving average price of $59.11. The company has a market capitalization of $3.52 billion, a PE ratio of 51.59 and a beta of 1.43.

Griffon (NYSE:GFF) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, February 7th. The conglomerate reported $1.07 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.78 by $0.29. Griffon had a return on equity of 72.80% and a net margin of 2.65%. The firm had revenue of $643.20 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $595.87 million. During the same period last year, the company earned $0.86 earnings per share. The company’s revenue was down 1.0% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, equities analysts expect that Griffon Co. will post 4.52 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Griffon Announces Dividend

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, March 21st. Stockholders of record on Thursday, February 29th were issued a dividend of $0.15 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Wednesday, February 28th. This represents a $0.60 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.87%. Griffon’s payout ratio is presently 44.78%.

Griffon Profile

Griffon Corporation, through its subsidiaries, provides consumer and professional, and home and building products in the United States, Europe, Canada, Australia, and internationally. The company operates through two segments: Home and Building Products, and Consumer and Professional Products. The Home and Building Products segment manufactures and markets residential and commercial sectional garage doors, rolling steel service doors, fire doors, shutters, steel security grilles, and room dividers for the use in commercial construction and repair, and home remodeling applications.