ABC Arbitrage SA Buys Shares of 43,947 News Co. (NASDAQ:NWSA)

ABC Arbitrage SA bought a new stake in News Co. (NASDAQ:NWSA) during the fourth quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The firm bought 43,947 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $1,210,000.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also modified their holdings of NWSA. Barclays PLC raised its stake in shares of News by 124.0% during the third quarter. Barclays PLC now owns 14,713,823 shares of the company’s stock valued at $391,832,000 after purchasing an additional 8,144,856 shares in the last quarter. Assenagon Asset Management S.A. raised its stake in shares of News by 374.6% during the fourth quarter. Assenagon Asset Management S.A. now owns 2,160,045 shares of the company’s stock valued at $59,488,000 after purchasing an additional 1,704,944 shares in the last quarter. Whale Rock Capital Management LLC bought a new stake in shares of News during the third quarter valued at about $44,585,000. State Street Corp grew its holdings in News by 6.1% during the third quarter. State Street Corp now owns 25,799,596 shares of the company’s stock worth $689,397,000 after acquiring an additional 1,476,224 shares during the period. Finally, BNP PARIBAS ASSET MANAGEMENT Holding S.A. grew its holdings in News by 1,815.4% during the third quarter. BNP PARIBAS ASSET MANAGEMENT Holding S.A. now owns 1,413,158 shares of the company’s stock worth $37,632,000 after acquiring an additional 1,339,379 shares during the period. 66.97% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of research analysts recently issued reports on the company. Guggenheim lifted their target price on News from $40.00 to $43.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Wednesday, January 22nd. UBS Group raised News from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating in a report on Tuesday, February 4th. Seaport Res Ptn raised News to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Friday, January 31st. Citigroup started coverage on News in a report on Friday, January 10th. They set a “buy” rating and a $36.00 target price on the stock. Finally, StockNews.com raised News from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research note on Monday, February 10th. Six investment analysts have rated the stock with a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock has a consensus rating of “Buy” and an average target price of $39.25.

News Trading Up 2.4 %

Shares of NWSA opened at $30.21 on Friday. The business’s 50-day moving average price is $28.17 and its 200 day moving average price is $27.66. The stock has a market capitalization of $17.18 billion, a P/E ratio of 41.38 and a beta of 1.35. News Co. has a 1-year low of $22.65 and a 1-year high of $30.25. The company has a current ratio of 1.73, a quick ratio of 1.26 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.22.

News (NASDAQ:NWSA) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, February 5th. The company reported $0.33 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.29 by $0.04. News had a return on equity of 5.31% and a net margin of 4.22%. Analysts expect that News Co. will post 0.94 earnings per share for the current year.

News Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, April 9th. Shareholders of record on Wednesday, March 12th will be given a dividend of $0.10 per share. The ex-dividend date is Wednesday, March 12th. This represents a $0.40 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.32%. News’s payout ratio is presently 27.40%.

News Profile

News Corporation, a media and information services company, creates and distributes authoritative and engaging content, and other products and services for consumers and businesses worldwide. It operates through six segments: Digital Real Estate Services, Subscription Video Services, Dow Jones, Book Publishing, News Media, and Other.