Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Group Inc. Grows Position in Pentair plc (NYSE:PNR)

Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Group Inc. grew its position in shares of Pentair plc (NYSE:PNR) by 0.1% during the fourth quarter, according to its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The fund owned 421,430 shares of the industrial products company’s stock after acquiring an additional 543 shares during the quarter. Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Group Inc.’s holdings in Pentair were worth $42,413,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

Other institutional investors have also recently made changes to their positions in the company. State Street Corp boosted its holdings in Pentair by 3.1% during the third quarter. State Street Corp now owns 8,756,075 shares of the industrial products company’s stock worth $856,257,000 after purchasing an additional 259,922 shares during the last quarter. FMR LLC boosted its stake in shares of Pentair by 4.7% in the 3rd quarter. FMR LLC now owns 5,704,672 shares of the industrial products company’s stock worth $557,860,000 after buying an additional 258,134 shares during the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC grew its holdings in shares of Pentair by 0.5% in the third quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 3,999,519 shares of the industrial products company’s stock valued at $389,800,000 after acquiring an additional 19,853 shares in the last quarter. DekaBank Deutsche Girozentrale increased its position in shares of Pentair by 11.9% during the third quarter. DekaBank Deutsche Girozentrale now owns 1,489,715 shares of the industrial products company’s stock valued at $143,823,000 after acquiring an additional 158,433 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Swedbank AB lifted its holdings in Pentair by 17.9% during the third quarter. Swedbank AB now owns 1,351,271 shares of the industrial products company’s stock worth $132,141,000 after acquiring an additional 205,000 shares during the period. Institutional investors own 92.37% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of brokerages have issued reports on PNR. Oppenheimer upped their price objective on Pentair from $110.00 to $115.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Wednesday, November 13th. Wolfe Research assumed coverage on shares of Pentair in a report on Tuesday, November 26th. They set an “outperform” rating and a $125.00 price objective for the company. KeyCorp reiterated a “sector weight” rating and issued a $115.00 target price on shares of Pentair in a research note on Monday, January 6th. StockNews.com lowered shares of Pentair from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Wednesday, October 23rd. Finally, Barclays upped their price objective on Pentair from $108.00 to $120.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Thursday, December 5th. Six analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, ten have given a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $111.25.

Pentair Trading Up 0.5 %

Shares of Pentair stock opened at $98.40 on Tuesday. The company’s 50-day moving average price is $102.66 and its 200-day moving average price is $97.50. The company has a current ratio of 1.60, a quick ratio of 0.91 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.46. Pentair plc has a 12-month low of $72.44 and a 12-month high of $110.71. The company has a market cap of $16.26 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 26.31, a PEG ratio of 1.93 and a beta of 1.20.

Pentair (NYSE:PNR) last posted its earnings results on Tuesday, February 4th. The industrial products company reported $1.08 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $1.02 by $0.06. The business had revenue of $972.90 million for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $970.95 million. Pentair had a net margin of 15.32% and a return on equity of 20.94%. The business’s revenue for the quarter was down 1.2% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the prior year, the company posted $0.87 EPS. On average, equities analysts expect that Pentair plc will post 4.77 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Pentair Increases Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, February 7th. Shareholders of record on Friday, January 24th were paid a $0.25 dividend. This is a positive change from Pentair’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.23. This represents a $1.00 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.02%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Friday, January 24th. Pentair’s dividend payout ratio is currently 26.74%.

About Pentair

Pentair plc provides various water solutions in the United States, Western Europe, China, Eastern Europe, Latin America, the Middle East, Southeast Asia, Australia, Canada, and Japan. The company operates through three segments: Flow, Water Solutions, and Pool. The Flow segment designs, manufactures, and sells fluid treatment and pump products and systems, including pressure vessels, gas recovery solutions, membrane bioreactors, wastewater reuse systems and advanced membrane filtration, separation systems, water disposal pumps, water supply pumps, fluid transfer pumps, turbine pumps, solid handling pumps, and agricultural spray nozzles for fluid delivery, ion exchange, desalination, food and beverage, separation technologies in the oil and gas industry, residential and municipal wells, water treatment, wastewater solids handling, pressure boosting, circulation and transfer, fire suppression, flood control, agricultural irrigation, and crop spray in residential, commercial, and industrial markets.