Vontobel Holding Ltd. Purchases 182,644 Shares of Walgreens Boots Alliance, Inc. (NASDAQ:WBA)

Vontobel Holding Ltd. raised its stake in shares of Walgreens Boots Alliance, Inc. (NASDAQ:WBA) by 131.2% in the fourth quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The institutional investor owned 321,880 shares of the pharmacy operator’s stock after buying an additional 182,644 shares during the quarter. Vontobel Holding Ltd.’s holdings in Walgreens Boots Alliance were worth $3,003,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other large investors have also added to or reduced their stakes in the stock. State Street Corp raised its stake in Walgreens Boots Alliance by 18.0% during the third quarter. State Street Corp now owns 42,997,580 shares of the pharmacy operator’s stock valued at $385,258,000 after buying an additional 6,569,223 shares during the last quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. raised its stake in Walgreens Boots Alliance by 43.6% during the third quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 10,969,188 shares of the pharmacy operator’s stock valued at $98,284,000 after buying an additional 3,329,857 shares during the last quarter. UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC raised its stake in shares of Walgreens Boots Alliance by 12.1% in the third quarter. UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC now owns 7,594,475 shares of the pharmacy operator’s stock worth $68,046,000 after purchasing an additional 817,762 shares during the last quarter. Thompson Siegel & Walmsley LLC raised its stake in shares of Walgreens Boots Alliance by 15.5% in the third quarter. Thompson Siegel & Walmsley LLC now owns 6,955,880 shares of the pharmacy operator’s stock worth $62,325,000 after purchasing an additional 934,754 shares during the last quarter. Finally, FMR LLC raised its stake in shares of Walgreens Boots Alliance by 2.5% in the third quarter. FMR LLC now owns 3,258,919 shares of the pharmacy operator’s stock worth $29,200,000 after purchasing an additional 80,525 shares during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 58.59% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several research firms have recently weighed in on WBA. Truist Financial decreased their price target on Walgreens Boots Alliance from $13.00 to $12.00 and set a “hold” rating for the company in a research note on Friday, January 31st. TD Cowen decreased their price target on Walgreens Boots Alliance from $16.00 to $14.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research note on Tuesday, October 22nd. Bank of America boosted their price target on Walgreens Boots Alliance from $7.50 to $8.50 and gave the stock an “underperform” rating in a research note on Monday, January 13th. Jefferies Financial Group decreased their price target on Walgreens Boots Alliance from $19.00 to $9.00 and set a “hold” rating for the company in a research note on Wednesday, October 23rd. Finally, Evercore ISI upped their price objective on Walgreens Boots Alliance from $9.00 to $12.00 and gave the company an “in-line” rating in a research report on Monday, January 13th. Four equities research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, nine have given a hold rating and two have issued a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $13.19.

Walgreens Boots Alliance Stock Performance

NASDAQ:WBA opened at $9.70 on Monday. The stock has a 50-day simple moving average of $10.31 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $9.74. Walgreens Boots Alliance, Inc. has a 52-week low of $8.08 and a 52-week high of $22.47. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.68, a quick ratio of 0.30 and a current ratio of 0.64. The firm has a market capitalization of $8.38 billion, a PE ratio of -0.95, a P/E/G ratio of 1.26 and a beta of 0.65.

Walgreens Boots Alliance (NASDAQ:WBA) last released its quarterly earnings results on Friday, January 10th. The pharmacy operator reported $0.51 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.38 by $0.13. The business had revenue of $39.50 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $37.40 billion. Walgreens Boots Alliance had a positive return on equity of 17.61% and a negative net margin of 5.87%. Walgreens Boots Alliance’s revenue for the quarter was up 7.6% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company posted $0.66 earnings per share. Analysts forecast that Walgreens Boots Alliance, Inc. will post 1.6 EPS for the current year.

Walgreens Boots Alliance Company Profile

Walgreens Boots Alliance, Inc operates as a healthcare, pharmacy, and retail company in the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, and internationally. It operates through three segments: U.S. Retail Pharmacy, International, and U.S. Healthcare. The U.S. Retail Pharmacy segment engages in operation of the retail drugstores, health and wellness services, specialty, and home delivery pharmacy services, which offers health and wellness, beauty, personal care and consumables, and general merchandise.