KBC Group NV Raises Stake in Spire Inc. (NYSE:SR)

KBC Group NV grew its stake in shares of Spire Inc. (NYSE:SR) by 27.4% during the first quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 2,938 shares of the utilities provider’s stock after purchasing an additional 631 shares during the quarter. KBC Group NV’s holdings in Spire were worth $230,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Vaughan Nelson Investment Management L.P. acquired a new position in shares of Spire in the 1st quarter valued at $69,889,000. Norges Bank acquired a new position in Spire in the 4th quarter valued at $42,432,000. Zimmer Partners LP purchased a new stake in shares of Spire during the 4th quarter worth $30,083,000. Wellington Management Group LLP boosted its position in shares of Spire by 29.0% during the 4th quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP now owns 1,022,870 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $69,381,000 after purchasing an additional 229,662 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Sourcerock Group LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Spire during the 4th quarter worth $12,567,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 87.36% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

SR has been the topic of several recent research reports. Guggenheim boosted their price objective on shares of Spire from $67.00 to $72.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Tuesday, April 1st. Wells Fargo & Company increased their target price on shares of Spire from $75.00 to $82.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Thursday, May 1st. Wall Street Zen raised shares of Spire from a “sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Friday, May 9th. Mizuho upped their price target on Spire from $76.00 to $82.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Wednesday, March 19th. Finally, Morgan Stanley restated an “underperform” rating on shares of Spire in a report on Wednesday, June 18th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, six have assigned a hold rating, three have issued a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $77.40.

Spire Stock Performance

Shares of SR opened at $74.06 on Monday. The business’s fifty day moving average price is $74.10 and its 200 day moving average price is $73.48. Spire Inc. has a 12-month low of $58.64 and a 12-month high of $79.81. The stock has a market capitalization of $4.37 billion, a PE ratio of 18.24, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.52 and a beta of 0.62. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.03, a current ratio of 0.43 and a quick ratio of 0.34.

Spire (NYSE:SR) last issued its earnings results on Wednesday, April 30th. The utilities provider reported $3.60 earnings per share for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $3.70 by ($0.10). Spire had a return on equity of 8.49% and a net margin of 10.22%. The company had revenue of $1.05 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.15 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the business earned $3.45 earnings per share. Spire’s quarterly revenue was down 6.8% on a year-over-year basis. Equities research analysts forecast that Spire Inc. will post 4.5 EPS for the current year.

Spire Announces Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, July 2nd. Stockholders of record on Friday, April 11th were issued a dividend of $0.785 per share. This represents a $3.14 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 4.24%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Wednesday, June 11th. Spire’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 77.34%.

Spire Profile

Spire Inc, together with its subsidiaries, engages in the purchase, retail distribution, and sale of natural gas to residential, commercial, industrial, and other end-users of natural gas in the United States. The company operates through three segments: Gas Utility, Gas Marketing, and Midstream. It is also involved in the marketing of natural gas and related services; and transportation and storage of natural gas.