Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership Decreases Position in BBVA Banco Frances S.A. $BBAR

Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership decreased its position in shares of BBVA Banco Frances S.A. (NYSE:BBAR) by 19.3% during the second quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The fund owned 888,562 shares of the bank’s stock after selling 212,931 shares during the quarter. Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership owned 0.44% of BBVA Banco Frances worth $14,626,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission.

Other hedge funds also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Channing Global Advisors LLC purchased a new stake in BBVA Banco Frances during the 2nd quarter valued at $419,000. JPMorgan Chase & Co. lifted its holdings in shares of BBVA Banco Frances by 171.8% during the second quarter. JPMorgan Chase & Co. now owns 177,455 shares of the bank’s stock valued at $2,921,000 after purchasing an additional 112,161 shares in the last quarter. SBI Securities Co. Ltd. boosted its position in shares of BBVA Banco Frances by 199.9% during the second quarter. SBI Securities Co. Ltd. now owns 2,381 shares of the bank’s stock valued at $39,000 after buying an additional 1,587 shares during the last quarter. Fourth Sail Capital LP bought a new stake in BBVA Banco Frances in the 2nd quarter worth about $29,399,000. Finally, GAM Holding AG purchased a new position in BBVA Banco Frances in the 2nd quarter worth about $743,000.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of brokerages have recently issued reports on BBAR. Zacks Research raised shares of BBVA Banco Frances from a “strong sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Monday, November 3rd. Hsbc Global Res upgraded shares of BBVA Banco Frances to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Wednesday, October 1st. The Goldman Sachs Group raised BBVA Banco Frances to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Monday, November 10th. HSBC upgraded BBVA Banco Frances from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and dropped their price target for the stock from $21.00 to $17.00 in a research note on Wednesday, October 1st. Finally, Itau BBA Securities upgraded BBVA Banco Frances from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating in a research report on Monday, October 27th. Two investment analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, four have given a Buy rating and three have assigned a Hold rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $20.00.

BBVA Banco Frances Price Performance

NYSE BBAR opened at $16.40 on Tuesday. The business’s fifty day moving average is $13.20 and its 200 day moving average is $14.35. BBVA Banco Frances S.A. has a fifty-two week low of $7.76 and a fifty-two week high of $25.01. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.32, a quick ratio of 1.11 and a current ratio of 1.07. The company has a market capitalization of $3.35 billion, a PE ratio of 17.26 and a beta of 1.07.

BBVA Banco Frances (NYSE:BBAR) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, November 25th. The bank reported $0.13 EPS for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $0.20 by ($0.07). BBVA Banco Frances had a return on equity of 7.43% and a net margin of 4.46%.The company had revenue of $512.44 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $871.10 billion. Sell-side analysts predict that BBVA Banco Frances S.A. will post 1.94 earnings per share for the current year.

BBVA Banco Frances Increases Dividend

The company also recently declared a monthly dividend, which will be paid on Tuesday, December 23rd. Shareholders of record on Tuesday, December 16th will be issued a dividend of $0.0331 per share. This is an increase from BBVA Banco Frances’s previous monthly dividend of $0.03. This represents a c) annualized dividend and a yield of 2.4%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Tuesday, December 16th. BBVA Banco Frances’s payout ratio is presently 41.05%.

About BBVA Banco Frances

Banco BBVA Argentina SA provides various banking products and services to individuals and companies in Argentina. The company provides retail banking products and services, such as checking and savings accounts, time deposits, credit cards financing, consumer and pledge loans, mortgages, insurance, and investment products to individuals; and small and medium-sized companies products and services, including financing products, factoring, checking accounts, time deposits, transactional and payroll services, insurance, and investment products to private-sector companies.