2,649 Shares in Spire Inc. (NYSE:SR) Purchased by M&T Bank Corp

M&T Bank Corp bought a new stake in Spire Inc. (NYSE:SR) in the 1st quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The firm bought 2,649 shares of the utilities provider’s stock, valued at approximately $207,000.

Other hedge funds also recently modified their holdings of the company. Vaughan Nelson Investment Management L.P. acquired a new stake in Spire during the 1st quarter worth $69,889,000. Norges Bank bought a new position in shares of Spire in the 4th quarter valued at about $42,432,000. Zimmer Partners LP acquired a new position in Spire during the fourth quarter worth approximately $30,083,000. Wellington Management Group LLP increased its holdings 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 acquiring an additional 229,662 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Sourcerock Group LLC bought a new position in shares of Spire in the fourth quarter valued at about $12,567,000. Institutional investors own 87.36% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several analysts have weighed in on SR shares. Morgan Stanley reiterated an “underperform” rating on shares of Spire in a research note on Wednesday, June 18th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. dropped their target price on Spire from $85.00 to $83.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a research report on Wednesday, May 28th. Wall Street Zen upgraded shares of Spire from a “sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Friday, May 9th. Wells Fargo & Company increased their target price on shares of Spire from $75.00 to $82.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Thursday, May 1st. Finally, Guggenheim lifted their price objective on Spire from $67.00 to $72.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Tuesday, April 1st. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, six have given a hold rating, three have assigned a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $78.60.

Spire Trading Down 0.1%

Shares of SR opened at $75.31 on Friday. The firm has a market cap of $4.44 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 18.55, a PEG ratio of 2.56 and a beta of 0.62. Spire Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $61.56 and a fifty-two week high of $79.81. The firm has a 50 day moving average price of $73.82 and a 200-day moving average price of $73.93. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.03, a quick ratio of 0.34 and a current ratio of 0.43.

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

Spire Dividend Announcement

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, July 2nd. Stockholders of record on Friday, April 11th were paid a dividend of $0.785 per share. This represents a $3.14 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 4.17%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Wednesday, June 11th. Spire’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 77.34%.

Spire Company 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.