American Century Companies Inc. Boosts Stock Position in Ardmore Shipping Corporation $ASC

American Century Companies Inc. grew its holdings in shares of Ardmore Shipping Corporation (NYSE:ASC) by 6.5% in the 3rd quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund owned 1,749,153 shares of the shipping company’s stock after buying an additional 106,497 shares during the quarter. American Century Companies Inc. owned 4.31% of Ardmore Shipping worth $20,762,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other hedge funds have also made changes to their positions in ASC. GAMMA Investing LLC raised its stake in shares of Ardmore Shipping by 14.8% in the 3rd quarter. GAMMA Investing LLC now owns 7,241 shares of the shipping company’s stock valued at $86,000 after purchasing an additional 931 shares in the last quarter. MIRAE ASSET GLOBAL ETFS HOLDINGS Ltd. raised its stake in Ardmore Shipping by 4.7% during the first quarter. MIRAE ASSET GLOBAL ETFS HOLDINGS Ltd. now owns 24,701 shares of the shipping company’s stock valued at $242,000 after buying an additional 1,102 shares in the last quarter. Federated Hermes Inc. lifted its holdings in Ardmore Shipping by 1.0% during the 3rd quarter. Federated Hermes Inc. now owns 283,183 shares of the shipping company’s stock worth $3,361,000 after buying an additional 2,765 shares during the last quarter. Raymond James Financial Inc. acquired a new stake in shares of Ardmore Shipping during the 2nd quarter valued at approximately $38,000. Finally, Sei Investments Co. lifted its stake in Ardmore Shipping by 1.2% during the second quarter. Sei Investments Co. now owns 359,623 shares of the shipping company’s stock worth $3,452,000 after purchasing an additional 4,190 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 62.22% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Separately, Weiss Ratings restated a “hold (c-)” rating on shares of Ardmore Shipping in a research report on Wednesday, December 24th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, two have given a Buy rating and two have assigned a Hold rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $15.00.

Ardmore Shipping Trading Down 1.0%

Ardmore Shipping stock opened at $15.79 on Tuesday. The company has a quick ratio of 3.98, a current ratio of 4.33 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.20. The firm has a 50-day moving average price of $13.15 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $12.41. The firm has a market capitalization of $641.31 million, a price-to-earnings ratio of 17.74 and a beta of -0.16. Ardmore Shipping Corporation has a 52-week low of $8.32 and a 52-week high of $16.91.

Ardmore Shipping (NYSE:ASC) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, February 12th. The shipping company reported $0.28 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.27 by $0.01. Ardmore Shipping had a net margin of 13.22% and a return on equity of 7.02%. The company had revenue of $82.91 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $51.00 million. Sell-side analysts expect that Ardmore Shipping Corporation will post 1.06 earnings per share for the current year.

Ardmore Shipping Cuts Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, March 13th. Stockholders of record on Friday, February 27th will be paid a $0.09 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, February 27th. This represents a $0.36 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 2.3%. Ardmore Shipping’s dividend payout ratio is presently 40.45%.

Ardmore Shipping Profile

Ardmore Shipping Corporation is a Bermuda-based provider of seaborne transportation services for refined petroleum products. The company owns and operates a modern fleet of product tankers, including medium-range (MR), long-range 2 (LR2) and Aframax vessels. Ardmore Shipping focuses on the ocean carriage of clean and dirty petroleum products under time charters, bareboat charters and spot voyages, serving a diverse customer base that includes major oil companies and trading houses.

Since its founding in 2005, Ardmore Shipping has grown its fleet through newbuilding contracts, second-hand acquisitions and fleet renewals, aiming to maintain a high quality, fuel-efficient profile.