Perpetual Ltd Makes New Investment in Pegasystems Inc. $PEGA

Perpetual Ltd bought a new position in shares of Pegasystems Inc. (NASDAQ:PEGA) during the 3rd quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund bought 9,078 shares of the technology company’s stock, valued at approximately $522,000.

Several other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also recently made changes to their positions in PEGA. Spire Wealth Management boosted its stake in Pegasystems by 274.2% during the second quarter. Spire Wealth Management now owns 565 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $31,000 after buying an additional 414 shares during the last quarter. MAI Capital Management increased its stake in shares of Pegasystems by 124.5% in the 2nd quarter. MAI Capital Management now owns 696 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $38,000 after acquiring an additional 386 shares during the last quarter. UMB Bank n.a. raised its holdings in shares of Pegasystems by 159.8% during the 2nd quarter. UMB Bank n.a. now owns 730 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $40,000 after acquiring an additional 449 shares during the period. First Horizon Advisors Inc. boosted its position in shares of Pegasystems by 335.7% during the 2nd quarter. First Horizon Advisors Inc. now owns 732 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $40,000 after acquiring an additional 564 shares during the last quarter. Finally, BNP PARIBAS ASSET MANAGEMENT Holding S.A. purchased a new stake in shares of Pegasystems in the second quarter valued at about $54,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 46.89% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of brokerages have commented on PEGA. Weiss Ratings reaffirmed a “hold (c+)” rating on shares of Pegasystems in a research note on Monday, December 15th. Wedbush lifted their price target on shares of Pegasystems from $70.00 to $75.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Thursday, October 23rd. DA Davidson upgraded Pegasystems from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and upped their price objective for the company from $60.00 to $85.00 in a report on Wednesday, October 22nd. Barclays raised their target price on Pegasystems from $58.00 to $67.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Thursday, October 23rd. Finally, Rosenblatt Securities upped their price target on Pegasystems from $65.00 to $70.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Thursday, October 23rd. Nine analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and two have assigned a Hold rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $70.05.

Insider Buying and Selling at Pegasystems

In other news, Chairman Alan Trefler sold 45,000 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, December 17th. The shares were sold at an average price of $58.13, for a total value of $2,615,850.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chairman owned 44,800,654 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $2,604,262,017.02. This trade represents a 0.10% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, CAO Efstathios A. Kouninis sold 4,425 shares of Pegasystems stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, October 27th. The shares were sold at an average price of $67.25, for a total transaction of $297,581.25. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief accounting officer owned 206 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $13,853.50. This trade represents a 95.55% decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. In the last three months, insiders have sold 205,301 shares of company stock valued at $12,297,609. Corporate insiders own 50.10% of the company’s stock.

Pegasystems Stock Up 3.9%

NASDAQ:PEGA opened at $61.17 on Monday. Pegasystems Inc. has a 52 week low of $29.84 and a 52 week high of $68.10. The stock’s fifty day moving average is $58.46 and its two-hundred day moving average is $55.79. The stock has a market capitalization of $10.38 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 41.05 and a beta of 1.09.

Pegasystems (NASDAQ:PEGA) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, October 21st. The technology company reported $0.30 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.18 by $0.12. Pegasystems had a return on equity of 43.49% and a net margin of 16.05%.The business had revenue of $381.35 million during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $351.95 million. During the same period in the previous year, the firm posted $0.39 earnings per share. The company’s revenue was up 17.3% on a year-over-year basis. On average, sell-side analysts expect that Pegasystems Inc. will post 1.89 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Pegasystems Announces Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, January 16th. Shareholders of record on Friday, January 2nd will be paid a dividend of $0.03 per share. The ex-dividend date is Friday, January 2nd. This represents a $0.12 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.2%. Pegasystems’s dividend payout ratio is 8.05%.

About Pegasystems

Pegasystems Inc is a software company specializing in customer engagement and digital process automation solutions. Headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Pegasystems develops enterprise applications designed to help organizations streamline operations, manage customer interactions and automate complex workflows. Its platform supports a wide range of use cases, from sales and marketing optimization to case management and robotic process automation.

The core of Pegasystems’ offering is the Pega Platform, a low-code development environment that enables businesses to build and deploy applications with minimal hand-coding.