Alliancebernstein L.P. Makes New Investment in Ituran Location and Control Ltd. (NASDAQ:ITRN)

Alliancebernstein L.P. purchased a new stake in Ituran Location and Control Ltd. (NASDAQ:ITRN) during the fourth quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The firm purchased 74,760 shares of the industrial products company’s stock, valued at approximately $2,329,000. Alliancebernstein L.P. owned approximately 0.38% of Ituran Location and Control at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other institutional investors have also added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership grew its stake in shares of Ituran Location and Control by 26.2% during the fourth quarter. Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership now owns 274,562 shares of the industrial products company’s stock worth $8,553,000 after buying an additional 56,956 shares during the last quarter. Heron Bay Capital Management increased its holdings in Ituran Location and Control by 25.7% in the 4th quarter. Heron Bay Capital Management now owns 15,845 shares of the industrial products company’s stock worth $494,000 after purchasing an additional 3,236 shares in the last quarter. KLP Kapitalforvaltning AS bought a new position in Ituran Location and Control in the fourth quarter valued at about $733,000. Magnetar Financial LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Ituran Location and Control during the fourth quarter valued at about $384,000. Finally, Thrivent Financial for Lutherans bought a new stake in shares of Ituran Location and Control during the fourth quarter worth about $229,000. 94.80% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Separately, Barclays raised their price objective on shares of Ituran Location and Control from $35.00 to $50.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Thursday, February 27th.

Ituran Location and Control Stock Down 0.5 %

NASDAQ ITRN opened at $33.31 on Thursday. Ituran Location and Control Ltd. has a twelve month low of $24.12 and a twelve month high of $45.43. The company has a market capitalization of $662.67 million, a price-to-earnings ratio of 12.76 and a beta of 0.90. The stock has a fifty day simple moving average of $36.91 and a 200 day simple moving average of $32.20.

Ituran Location and Control (NASDAQ:ITRN) last released its earnings results on Wednesday, February 26th. The industrial products company reported $0.70 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.68 by $0.02. Ituran Location and Control had a net margin of 15.65% and a return on equity of 28.31%. The business had revenue of $82.88 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $81.81 million.

Ituran Location and Control Increases Dividend

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, April 3rd. Investors of record on Thursday, March 20th were given a dividend of $0.50 per share. This represents a $2.00 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 6.00%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, March 20th. This is an increase from Ituran Location and Control’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.39. Ituran Location and Control’s payout ratio is presently 73.80%.

Ituran Location and Control Profile

Ituran Location and Control Ltd., together with its subsidiaries, provides location based telematics services and machine-to-machine telematics products. It operates through two segments, Telematics Services and Telematics Products. The Telematics services segment offers stolen vehicle recovery and tracking services, which enables to locate, track, and recover stolen vehicles for its subscribers; fleet management services that enable corporate and individual customers to track and manage their vehicles in real time; and locator services that allow customers to protect valuable merchandise and equipment.