Strs Ohio Makes New Investment in Element Solutions Inc. $ESI

Strs Ohio purchased a new position in Element Solutions Inc. (NYSE:ESI) in the 1st quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The fund purchased 51,826 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $1,172,000.

Several other hedge funds have also added to or reduced their stakes in ESI. Gates Capital Management Inc. lifted its stake in Element Solutions by 101.9% in the first quarter. Gates Capital Management Inc. now owns 5,424,745 shares of the company’s stock worth $122,653,000 after purchasing an additional 2,738,250 shares during the last quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. increased its position in shares of Element Solutions by 12.1% in the first quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 24,932,851 shares of the company’s stock valued at $563,732,000 after acquiring an additional 2,688,056 shares during the period. AQR Capital Management LLC increased its position in shares of Element Solutions by 131.0% in the first quarter. AQR Capital Management LLC now owns 2,861,197 shares of the company’s stock valued at $64,692,000 after acquiring an additional 1,622,819 shares during the period. Principal Financial Group Inc. increased its position in shares of Element Solutions by 1,431.1% in the first quarter. Principal Financial Group Inc. now owns 1,143,869 shares of the company’s stock valued at $25,863,000 after acquiring an additional 1,069,160 shares during the period. Finally, Nuveen LLC purchased a new position in shares of Element Solutions in the first quarter valued at about $20,041,000. 92.32% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of equities analysts have issued reports on ESI shares. KeyCorp boosted their price objective on shares of Element Solutions from $29.00 to $30.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Friday, August 1st. Mizuho boosted their price objective on shares of Element Solutions from $24.00 to $27.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Tuesday, July 15th. The Goldman Sachs Group restated a “neutral” rating and issued a $27.00 price objective (up previously from $24.00) on shares of Element Solutions in a research report on Tuesday, July 15th. Finally, UBS Group boosted their price target on shares of Element Solutions from $29.00 to $30.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Thursday, July 31st. One analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, eight have assigned a Buy rating and one has issued a Hold rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock has a consensus rating of “Buy” and a consensus price target of $27.38.

Element Solutions Stock Down 0.5%

Shares of Element Solutions stock opened at $26.37 on Thursday. The company has a market cap of $6.37 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 26.37, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.73 and a beta of 1.31. The company’s 50 day moving average is $24.90 and its 200 day moving average is $23.03. Element Solutions Inc. has a twelve month low of $16.77 and a twelve month high of $29.78. The company has a quick ratio of 3.30, a current ratio of 4.10 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.62.

Element Solutions (NYSE:ESI) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, July 30th. The company reported $0.37 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.36 by $0.01. The company had revenue of $625.20 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $587.45 million. Element Solutions had a net margin of 9.66% and a return on equity of 14.14%. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 2.0% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm earned $0.36 earnings per share. Research analysts anticipate that Element Solutions Inc. will post 1.45 EPS for the current year.

Element Solutions Announces Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, September 15th. Shareholders of record on Tuesday, September 2nd were issued a dividend of $0.08 per share. This represents a $0.32 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.2%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Tuesday, September 2nd. Element Solutions’s dividend payout ratio is currently 32.00%.

About Element Solutions

Element Solutions Inc operates as a specialty chemicals company in the United States, China, and internationally. The company operates in two segments, Electronics, and Industrial & Specialty. The Electronics segment researches, formulates, and sells specialty chemicals and materials for various types of electronics hardware products.