Royal London Asset Management Ltd. Sells 36,020 Shares of Reliance, Inc. (NYSE:RS)

Royal London Asset Management Ltd. decreased its holdings in Reliance, Inc. (NYSE:RS) by 4.9% in the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the SEC. The institutional investor owned 693,467 shares of the industrial products company’s stock after selling 36,020 shares during the quarter. Royal London Asset Management Ltd. owned 1.28% of Reliance worth $186,723,000 as of its most recent filing with the SEC.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently made changes to their positions in RS. Pacer Advisors Inc. raised its holdings in shares of Reliance by 6,311.2% in the 4th quarter. Pacer Advisors Inc. now owns 816,465 shares of the industrial products company’s stock worth $219,841,000 after buying an additional 803,730 shares in the last quarter. Principal Financial Group Inc. grew its position in Reliance by 53.5% in the fourth quarter. Principal Financial Group Inc. now owns 725,685 shares of the industrial products company’s stock valued at $195,402,000 after acquiring an additional 252,955 shares during the period. Edge Capital Group LLC acquired a new position in Reliance during the fourth quarter worth $46,979,000. Woodward Diversified Capital LLC bought a new position in shares of Reliance during the fourth quarter valued at $21,015,000. Finally, Raymond James Financial Inc. acquired a new stake in shares of Reliance in the 4th quarter valued at $20,640,000. 79.26% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of equities research analysts recently issued reports on the stock. Wolfe Research upgraded shares of Reliance from an “underperform” rating to a “peer perform” rating in a research report on Wednesday, January 8th. KeyCorp lifted their target price on shares of Reliance from $321.00 to $327.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Monday, February 24th. Finally, The Goldman Sachs Group started coverage on Reliance in a research report on Monday, December 2nd. They set a “neutral” rating and a $341.00 price target on the stock. Five investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and two have issued a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, Reliance currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $329.17.

Insider Buying and Selling

In related news, CEO Karla R. Lewis sold 31,136 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, February 24th. The shares were sold at an average price of $300.52, for a total value of $9,356,990.72. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 90,230 shares in the company, valued at $27,115,919.60. This represents a 25.65 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. Corporate insiders own 0.69% of the company’s stock.

Reliance Price Performance

Shares of RS stock opened at $282.66 on Thursday. Reliance, Inc. has a 1 year low of $256.98 and a 1 year high of $342.20. The company has a current ratio of 3.21, a quick ratio of 1.58 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.10. The firm’s 50 day moving average is $287.60 and its 200-day moving average is $289.86. The firm has a market capitalization of $14.97 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 18.31 and a beta of 0.87.

Reliance (NYSE:RS) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, February 19th. The industrial products company reported $2.22 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $2.74 by ($0.52). The firm had revenue of $3.13 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $3.04 billion. Reliance had a return on equity of 11.87% and a net margin of 6.33%. Sell-side analysts forecast that Reliance, Inc. will post 16.98 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Reliance Increases Dividend

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, March 21st. Investors of record on Friday, March 7th will be issued a $1.20 dividend. This is a boost from Reliance’s previous quarterly dividend of $1.10. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, March 7th. This represents a $4.80 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.70%. Reliance’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 31.09%.

Reliance Company Profile

Reliance, Inc operates as a diversified metal solutions provider and the metals service center company in the United States, Canada, and internationally. The company distributes a line of approximately 100,000 metal products, including alloy, aluminum, brass, copper, carbon steel, stainless steel, titanium, and specialty steel products; and provides metals processing services to general manufacturing, non-residential construction, transportation, aerospace, energy, electronics and semiconductor fabrication, and heavy industries.