Navient Co. (NASDAQ:NAVI) EVP Sells $160,000.00 in Stock

Navient Co. (NASDAQ:NAVI) EVP Mark L. Heleen sold 10,000 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Friday, May 3rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $16.00, for a total value of $160,000.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the executive vice president now directly owns 393,611 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $6,297,776. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website.

Navient Trading Down 1.4 %

NASDAQ NAVI opened at $15.76 on Tuesday. Navient Co. has a 1-year low of $14.10 and a 1-year high of $19.69. The company has a current ratio of 12.52, a quick ratio of 12.52 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 18.38. The stock has a 50-day moving average of $16.46 and a 200-day moving average of $17.00. The firm has a market cap of $1.76 billion, a PE ratio of 10.10 and a beta of 1.39.

Navient (NASDAQ:NAVI) last released its earnings results on Wednesday, April 24th. The credit services provider reported $0.63 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.58 by $0.05. Navient had a return on equity of 12.09% and a net margin of 3.93%. The company had revenue of $163.00 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $188.04 million. As a group, sell-side analysts forecast that Navient Co. will post 1.66 EPS for the current year.

Navient Dividend Announcement

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, March 15th. Stockholders of record on Friday, March 1st were paid a $0.16 dividend. This represents a $0.64 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 4.06%. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, February 29th. Navient’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 41.03%.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Navient

Hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of the stock. Donald Smith & CO. Inc. increased its holdings in Navient by 31.5% during the 4th quarter. Donald Smith & CO. Inc. now owns 3,586,501 shares of the credit services provider’s stock valued at $66,781,000 after purchasing an additional 858,890 shares during the period. Sumitomo Mitsui DS Asset Management Company Ltd purchased a new position in Navient during the 4th quarter valued at about $13,546,000. DekaBank Deutsche Girozentrale increased its holdings in Navient by 207.8% during the 4th quarter. DekaBank Deutsche Girozentrale now owns 231,186 shares of the credit services provider’s stock valued at $4,320,000 after purchasing an additional 156,086 shares during the period. Denali Advisors LLC increased its holdings in Navient by 115.9% during the 1st quarter. Denali Advisors LLC now owns 283,000 shares of the credit services provider’s stock valued at $4,924,000 after purchasing an additional 151,900 shares during the period. Finally, Assenagon Asset Management S.A. increased its holdings in Navient by 24.8% during the 3rd quarter. Assenagon Asset Management S.A. now owns 541,674 shares of the credit services provider’s stock valued at $9,328,000 after purchasing an additional 107,543 shares during the period. Institutional investors own 97.14% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of equities research analysts recently issued reports on the company. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods lowered their price objective on Navient from $19.00 to $17.00 and set a “market perform” rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday, April 25th. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft assumed coverage on Navient in a research report on Wednesday, January 10th. They issued a “hold” rating and a $19.00 price objective on the stock. JPMorgan Chase & Co. lowered their price objective on Navient from $17.00 to $16.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday, April 25th. Citigroup increased their price objective on Navient from $17.00 to $18.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Thursday, February 1st. Finally, StockNews.com downgraded Navient from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Thursday, February 1st. Three investment analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating and eight have issued a hold rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, Navient currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $16.10.

About Navient

Navient Corporation provides technology-enabled education finance and business processing solutions for education, health care, and government clients in the United States. It operates through three segments: Federal Education Loans, Consumer Lending, and Business Processing. The company owns Federal Family Education Loan Program (FFELP) loans that are insured or guaranteed by state or not-for-profit agencies; and performs servicing on its portfolios, as well as federal education loans held by other institutions.