Raymond James Financial Inc. Purchases Shares of 8,458 CGI Inc. (NYSE:GIB)

Raymond James Financial Inc. acquired a new position in shares of CGI Inc. (NYSE:GIB) (TSE:GIB.A) during the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor acquired 8,458 shares of the technology company’s stock, valued at approximately $925,000.

Several other large investors also recently made changes to their positions in the company. Vanguard Group Inc. boosted its holdings in CGI by 1.6% in the fourth quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 7,942,779 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $869,067,000 after acquiring an additional 128,285 shares in the last quarter. Bank of Montreal Can raised its position in shares of CGI by 17.3% during the fourth quarter. Bank of Montreal Can now owns 3,843,289 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $419,976,000 after purchasing an additional 567,868 shares during the period. Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership lifted its holdings in shares of CGI by 29.3% in the 4th quarter. Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership now owns 2,992,111 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $327,007,000 after purchasing an additional 678,431 shares in the last quarter. Norges Bank bought a new position in shares of CGI in the 4th quarter worth $286,970,000. Finally, TD Asset Management Inc. grew its position in CGI by 3.5% in the 4th quarter. TD Asset Management Inc. now owns 2,383,862 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $260,697,000 after purchasing an additional 81,440 shares during the period. 66.68% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of research analysts have weighed in on the stock. UBS Group raised their price objective on shares of CGI from $118.00 to $122.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Monday, February 3rd. Royal Bank of Canada reaffirmed an “outperform” rating and issued a $192.00 price target on shares of CGI in a research report on Wednesday, March 26th. Finally, Jefferies Financial Group cut their price target on CGI from $140.00 to $135.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research note on Tuesday, January 21st. Two analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, two have assigned a buy rating and two have given a strong buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock has an average rating of “Buy” and a consensus target price of $156.75.

CGI Stock Performance

NYSE GIB opened at $105.18 on Tuesday. The company has a fifty day moving average price of $102.59 and a 200-day moving average price of $109.14. The firm has a market cap of $23.85 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 19.02, a PEG ratio of 2.58 and a beta of 0.85. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.28, a current ratio of 1.31 and a quick ratio of 1.04. CGI Inc. has a 1 year low of $92.85 and a 1 year high of $122.79.

CGI (NYSE:GIB) (TSE:GIB.A) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, April 30th. The technology company reported $1.48 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.50 by ($0.02). CGI had a return on equity of 19.32% and a net margin of 11.72%. The firm had revenue of $2.80 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $4.05 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the company posted $1.97 earnings per share. The company’s revenue for the quarter was up 7.6% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, equities research analysts predict that CGI Inc. will post 5.79 EPS for the current fiscal year.

CGI Increases Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, June 20th. Investors of record on Friday, May 16th will be issued a dividend of $0.1086 per share. This is a positive change from CGI’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.10. This represents a $0.43 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.41%. The ex-dividend date is Friday, May 16th. CGI’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 7.47%.

About CGI

CGI Inc, together with its subsidiaries, provides information technology (IT) and business process services. Its services include the business and strategic IT consulting, systems integration, and software solutions. The company also provides application development, modernization and maintenance, holistic enterprise digitization, automation, hybrid and cloud management, and business process services; intellectual property-based solutions; business consulting; managed IT services; and IT infrastructure services.