B. Metzler seel. Sohn & Co. AG Decreases Holdings in Motorola Solutions, Inc. $MSI

B. Metzler seel. Sohn & Co. AG reduced its stake in Motorola Solutions, Inc. (NYSE:MSI) by 18.0% in the 3rd quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 26,277 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock after selling 5,778 shares during the period. B. Metzler seel. Sohn & Co. AG’s holdings in Motorola Solutions were worth $12,016,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Other hedge funds also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Covea Finance boosted its holdings 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 purchasing an additional 6,153 shares during the last quarter. Swedbank AB increased its holdings in Motorola Solutions by 20.3% during the 3rd quarter. Swedbank AB now owns 1,345,492 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock worth $615,280,000 after purchasing an additional 227,062 shares during the last quarter. Alps Advisors Inc. increased its holdings in Motorola Solutions by 180.3% during the 3rd quarter. Alps Advisors Inc. now owns 19,899 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock worth $9,100,000 after purchasing an additional 12,799 shares during the last quarter. Varma Mutual Pension Insurance Co raised its position in shares of Motorola Solutions by 8.4% in the 3rd quarter. Varma Mutual Pension Insurance Co now owns 29,701 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock valued at $13,582,000 after purchasing an additional 2,300 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Geode Capital Management LLC boosted its stake in shares of Motorola Solutions by 1.2% during the 2nd quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 4,386,899 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock valued at $1,839,569,000 after buying an additional 51,474 shares during the last quarter. 84.17% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of analysts have recently weighed in on MSI shares. Morgan Stanley reissued an “overweight” rating and set a $470.00 price target on shares of Motorola Solutions in a research report on Thursday, February 12th. Northcoast Research raised shares of Motorola Solutions from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and set a $450.00 price target on the stock in a report on Monday, December 1st. Argus raised shares of Motorola Solutions to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Friday, February 13th. Barclays boosted their target price on shares of Motorola Solutions from $495.00 to $506.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Thursday, February 12th. Finally, Weiss Ratings upgraded shares of Motorola Solutions from a “hold (c+)” rating to a “buy (b-)” rating in a research note on Monday, March 2nd. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, nine have assigned a Buy rating and one has issued a Hold rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock has an average rating of “Buy” and an average price target of $497.14.

Motorola Solutions Stock Performance

Shares of MSI opened at $461.11 on Friday. The stock has a market capitalization of $76.39 billion, a PE ratio of 36.14, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 0.96. The business’s fifty day moving average price is $420.96 and its 200 day moving average price is $422.93. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 3.47, a current ratio of 1.04 and a quick ratio of 0.87. Motorola Solutions, Inc. has a 12-month low of $359.36 and a 12-month high of $492.22.

Motorola Solutions (NYSE:MSI) last released its earnings results on Wednesday, February 11th. The communications equipment provider reported $4.59 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $4.35 by $0.24. The firm had revenue of $3.38 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $3.34 billion. Motorola Solutions had a net margin of 18.44% and a return on equity of 110.75%. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 12.3% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm earned $4.04 earnings per share. Equities research analysts forecast that Motorola Solutions, Inc. will post 13.55 EPS for the current year.

Motorola Solutions Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, April 15th. Investors of record on Friday, March 20th will be given a dividend of $1.21 per share. This represents a $4.84 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.0%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, March 20th. Motorola Solutions’s dividend payout ratio is currently 37.93%.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other news, Director Kenneth D. Denman sold 434 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, February 26th. The stock was sold at an average price of $470.12, for a total transaction of $204,032.08. Following the completion of the transaction, the director directly owned 7,153 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $3,362,768.36. This represents a 5.72% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, CEO Gregory Q. Brown sold 28,435 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, March 4th. The stock was sold at an average price of $477.95, for a total value of $13,590,508.25. Following the sale, the chief executive officer owned 90,721 shares in the company, valued at $43,360,101.95. The trade was a 23.86% decrease in their ownership of the stock. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. Insiders have sold a total of 129,069 shares of company stock worth $60,779,964 over the last quarter. 1.44% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

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.