Natixis Advisors LLC Sells 7,636 Shares of Pentair plc (NYSE:PNR)

Natixis Advisors LLC trimmed its position in Pentair plc (NYSE:PNR) by 7.4% during the 4th quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund owned 95,474 shares of the industrial products company’s stock after selling 7,636 shares during the quarter. Natixis Advisors LLC owned about 0.06% of Pentair worth $9,609,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Several other large investors have also recently made changes to their positions in the company. State Street Corp grew its position in Pentair by 3.1% in the third quarter. State Street Corp now owns 8,756,075 shares of the industrial products company’s stock worth $856,257,000 after acquiring an additional 259,922 shares in the last quarter. FMR LLC grew its position in Pentair by 4.7% in the third quarter. FMR LLC now owns 5,704,672 shares of the industrial products company’s stock worth $557,860,000 after acquiring an additional 258,134 shares in the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC grew its position in 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 worth $389,800,000 after acquiring an additional 19,853 shares in the last quarter. Swedbank AB grew its position in Pentair by 17.9% in 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 in the last quarter. Finally, Bank of New York Mellon Corp grew its position in Pentair by 0.7% in the fourth quarter. Bank of New York Mellon Corp now owns 1,010,068 shares of the industrial products company’s stock worth $101,653,000 after acquiring an additional 7,434 shares in the last quarter. 92.37% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

PNR has been the subject of several recent research reports. Citigroup dropped their price target on Pentair from $126.00 to $119.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research report on Monday, January 13th. Royal Bank of Canada restated an “outperform” rating and set a $115.00 target price on shares of Pentair in a research report on Thursday, November 21st. Stifel Nicolaus dropped their target price on Pentair from $126.00 to $125.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research report on Friday, January 24th. KeyCorp restated a “sector weight” rating and set a $115.00 target price on shares of Pentair in a research report on Monday, January 6th. Finally, StockNews.com upgraded Pentair from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report on Tuesday, March 11th. Four equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, eleven have assigned a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, Pentair presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $112.93.

Pentair Stock Performance

Shares of NYSE:PNR opened at $88.34 on Friday. The company has a market capitalization of $14.56 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 23.62, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.87 and a beta of 1.23. Pentair plc has a 52 week low of $72.63 and a 52 week high of $110.71. The company has a quick ratio of 0.92, a current ratio of 1.60 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.46. The firm has a 50 day moving average of $95.91 and a 200 day moving average of $98.57.

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

Pentair Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, May 2nd. Stockholders of record on Friday, April 18th will be given a dividend of $0.25 per share. This represents a $1.00 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.13%. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, April 17th. Pentair’s payout ratio is presently 26.74%.

Pentair Company Profile

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.