Baillie Gifford & Co. Acquires Shares of 38,760 Motorola Solutions, Inc. $MSI

Baillie Gifford & Co. bought a new position in shares of Motorola Solutions, Inc. (NYSE:MSI) in the 3rd quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor bought 38,760 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock, valued at approximately $17,725,000.

Other large investors have also recently modified their holdings of the company. Covea Finance grew its position in Motorola Solutions by 5.9% in the third quarter. Covea Finance now owns 111,219 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock valued at $50,859,000 after acquiring an additional 6,153 shares during the last quarter. Obermeyer Wealth Partners lifted its holdings in shares of Motorola Solutions by 261.0% in the second quarter. Obermeyer Wealth Partners now owns 8,073 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock worth $3,394,000 after acquiring an additional 5,837 shares during the last quarter. Machina Capital S.A.S. boosted its stake in shares of Motorola Solutions by 345.3% in the 2nd quarter. Machina Capital S.A.S. now owns 13,948 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock valued at $5,865,000 after purchasing an additional 10,816 shares in the last quarter. Whalen Wealth Management Inc. acquired a new stake in shares of Motorola Solutions in the 2nd quarter valued at approximately $257,000. Finally, Swedbank AB grew its holdings in shares of Motorola Solutions by 20.3% during the 3rd quarter. Swedbank AB now owns 1,345,492 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock valued at $615,280,000 after purchasing an additional 227,062 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 84.17% of the company’s stock.

Motorola Solutions Stock Up 1.0%

Shares of MSI opened at $401.60 on Friday. The stock’s 50-day moving average price is $378.22 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $421.58. Motorola Solutions, Inc. has a 12 month low of $359.36 and a 12 month high of $492.22. The company has a market capitalization of $66.89 billion, a PE ratio of 32.23, a PEG ratio of 3.00 and a beta of 1.00. The company has a current ratio of 1.03, a quick ratio of 0.86 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 3.59.

Motorola Solutions (NYSE:MSI) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Friday, October 31st. The communications equipment provider reported $4.06 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $3.85 by $0.21. The company had revenue of $3.01 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $2.99 billion. Motorola Solutions had a return on equity of 118.48% and a net margin of 18.71%.The business’s quarterly revenue was up 7.8% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm posted $3.74 earnings per share. On average, analysts anticipate that Motorola Solutions, Inc. will post 13.55 EPS for the current year.

Motorola Solutions Increases Dividend

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, January 15th. Shareholders of record on Monday, December 15th were issued a dividend of $1.21 per share. This represents a $4.84 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.2%. The ex-dividend date was Monday, December 15th. This is a positive change from Motorola Solutions’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.01. Motorola Solutions’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 38.84%.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several equities analysts recently commented on MSI shares. Weiss Ratings reissued a “hold (c+)” rating on shares of Motorola Solutions in a research note on Monday, December 29th. Northcoast Research upgraded shares of Motorola Solutions from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and set a $450.00 price target for the company in a report on Monday, December 1st. Barclays dropped their price target on Motorola Solutions from $509.00 to $495.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a research note on Friday, October 31st. Finally, Piper Sandler upgraded Motorola Solutions from a “neutral” rating to an “overweight” rating and reduced their price objective for the stock from $465.00 to $443.00 in a research report on Monday, January 5th. Seven investment analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and three have assigned a Hold rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $491.86.

About Motorola Solutions

Motorola Solutions, Inc is a provider of mission-critical communications and analytics solutions for public safety and commercial customers. The company designs, manufactures and supports a range of communications equipment and software aimed at enabling first responders, government agencies and enterprises to coordinate and operate reliably in high-pressure environments. Its offerings emphasize secure, resilient connectivity and situational awareness for organizations that require dependable voice, data and video communications.

Product lines include land mobile radio (LMR) systems and handheld and vehicle-mounted radios used by police, fire and emergency medical services; broadband push-to-talk and LTE-based solutions; command-and-control center software for incident management and records; and video security and analytics systems.