First Trust Advisors LP Raises Stock Holdings in Rollins, Inc. $ROL

First Trust Advisors LP grew its position in shares of Rollins, Inc. (NYSE:ROL) by 10.8% in the first quarter, according to its most recent filing with the SEC. The fund owned 977,008 shares of the business services provider’s stock after acquiring an additional 95,588 shares during the quarter. First Trust Advisors LP owned about 0.20% of Rollins worth $52,182,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also recently modified their holdings of the company. Vanguard Group Inc. increased its position in Rollins by 4.3% in the fourth quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 38,282,523 shares of the business services provider’s stock worth $2,297,717,000 after purchasing an additional 1,562,241 shares during the last quarter. State Street Corp lifted its position in Rollins by 4.7% during the fourth quarter. State Street Corp now owns 12,850,361 shares of the business services provider’s stock valued at $771,279,000 after purchasing an additional 575,946 shares during the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC lifted its position in Rollins by 6.6% during the fourth quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 10,163,847 shares of the business services provider’s stock valued at $608,256,000 after purchasing an additional 626,866 shares during the last quarter. Invesco Ltd. grew its stake in shares of Rollins by 8.2% in the 4th quarter. Invesco Ltd. now owns 6,089,189 shares of the business services provider’s stock worth $365,473,000 after buying an additional 461,869 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Norges Bank purchased a new position in shares of Rollins in the 4th quarter worth $244,669,000. 51.79% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Key Rollins News

Here are the key news stories impacting Rollins this week:

• Positive Sentiment: Management said termite and ancillary services continued to post solid growth, and lead volumes improved toward late June and early July, which could support a recovery in coming quarters.
• Positive Sentiment: Several analysts still see upside from current levels despite trimming targets, including Piper Sandler maintaining an overweight rating and BNP Paribas Exane keeping a neutral view with a higher target than the stock’s recent trading level.
• Neutral Sentiment: Rollins has been described as balancing solid Q2 growth with a softer outlook, suggesting the quarter was mixed rather than uniformly negative.
• Neutral Sentiment: Ongoing media coverage around the earnings call and transcript is reinforcing investor focus on management’s commentary about demand trends and margin performance.
• Negative Sentiment: Rollins reported Q2 earnings of $0.32 per share, below the consensus estimate of $0.34, and revenue of about $1.08 billion also came in slightly short of expectations.
• Negative Sentiment: Analysts turned more cautious after the report, with JPMorgan reaffirming an underweight rating and sharply lowering its price target, while Bank of America also cut its target and kept a neutral stance.
• Negative Sentiment: Commentary around slower residential demand and a “downbeat” earnings release has added to the selloff, as the market appears to be recalibrating expectations after a period of high optimism.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several analysts have recently issued reports on ROL shares. Bank of America restated a “neutral” rating and set a $35.00 target price (down from $55.00) on shares of Rollins in a research report on Thursday. Barclays set a $45.00 price objective on Rollins and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research note on Friday. BNP Paribas Exane lowered their price objective on Rollins from $63.00 to $44.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a research note on Friday. Sanford C. Bernstein cut Rollins from an “outperform” rating to a “market perform” rating and dropped their target price for the stock from $70.00 to $52.00 in a report on Friday, May 29th. Finally, Wells Fargo & Company downgraded Rollins from an “overweight” rating to an “underweight” rating and cut their target price for the company from $46.00 to $32.00 in a research report on Friday. One research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, five have issued a Buy rating, ten have assigned a Hold rating and two have given a Sell rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Rollins currently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $48.71.

Rollins Price Performance

ROL opened at $38.59 on Monday. The business has a fifty day moving average of $46.11 and a 200 day moving average of $53.72. The stock has a market cap of $18.57 billion, a P/E ratio of 35.08, a PEG ratio of 4.14 and a beta of 0.75. The company has a quick ratio of 0.58, a current ratio of 0.63 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.34. Rollins, Inc. has a 52-week low of $36.59 and a 52-week high of $66.14.

Rollins (NYSE:ROL) last released its earnings results on Wednesday, July 22nd. The business services provider reported $0.32 earnings per share for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.34 by ($0.02). Rollins had a return on equity of 38.81% and a net margin of 13.55%.The business had revenue of $1.08 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $1.09 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business earned $0.30 EPS. The business’s revenue for the quarter was up 7.9% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, sell-side analysts anticipate that Rollins, Inc. will post 1.21 EPS for the current year.

Rollins Dividend Announcement

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, September 10th. Stockholders of record on Monday, August 10th will be issued a $0.1825 dividend. The ex-dividend date is Monday, August 10th. This represents a $0.73 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.9%. Rollins’s dividend payout ratio is presently 66.36%.

Rollins Profile

Rollins, Inc (NYSE: ROL) is a provider of pest and termite control services operating through a network of subsidiaries and franchises. Headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, the company offers a broad range of pest management solutions for both residential and commercial customers, positioning itself as a specialist in protecting property and public health from pests and vectors.

Its service offerings include general pest control, termite inspection and treatment, bed bug remediation, mosquito and vector control, wildlife exclusion, and related specialty services.