Insider Selling: Citigroup Inc. (NYSE:C) COO Sells $2,433,000.00 in Stock

Citigroup Inc. (NYSE:C) COO Anand Selvakesari sold 30,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Thursday, February 13th. The shares were sold at an average price of $81.10, for a total transaction of $2,433,000.00. Following the sale, the chief operating officer now owns 229,180 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $18,586,498. The trade was a 11.57 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is accessible through the SEC website.

Citigroup Price Performance

C stock opened at $81.32 on Friday. The stock has a 50-day moving average price of $76.63 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $68.32. The stock has a market cap of $153.79 billion, a PE ratio of 13.67, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 0.67 and a beta of 1.44. The company has a current ratio of 0.96, a quick ratio of 0.96 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.50. Citigroup Inc. has a 1 year low of $53.51 and a 1 year high of $84.74.

Citigroup (NYSE:C) last released its earnings results on Wednesday, January 15th. The company reported $1.34 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.22 by $0.12. The firm had revenue of $19.58 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $19.51 billion. Citigroup had a return on equity of 6.62% and a net margin of 7.43%. The company’s revenue was up 12.3% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company earned $0.84 EPS. Equities analysts forecast that Citigroup Inc. will post 7.53 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Citigroup declared that its board has approved a share buyback program on Wednesday, January 15th that allows the company to buyback $20.00 billion in shares. This buyback authorization allows the company to repurchase up to 13.5% of its stock through open market purchases. Stock buyback programs are often an indication that the company’s board of directors believes its stock is undervalued.

Citigroup Announces Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, February 28th. Stockholders of record on Monday, February 3rd will be paid a dividend of $0.56 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Monday, February 3rd. This represents a $2.24 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 2.75%. Citigroup’s dividend payout ratio is 37.65%.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Citigroup

A number of large investors have recently modified their holdings of C. Norges Bank acquired a new position in shares of Citigroup during the 4th quarter worth about $1,935,599,000. Capital World Investors lifted its stake in Citigroup by 455.2% in the 4th quarter. Capital World Investors now owns 31,352,582 shares of the company’s stock valued at $2,206,908,000 after purchasing an additional 25,705,141 shares during the last quarter. FMR LLC lifted its stake in Citigroup by 29.7% in the 4th quarter. FMR LLC now owns 34,362,176 shares of the company’s stock valued at $2,418,754,000 after purchasing an additional 7,863,718 shares during the last quarter. Franklin Resources Inc. lifted its stake in Citigroup by 18.5% in the 3rd quarter. Franklin Resources Inc. now owns 30,027,213 shares of the company’s stock valued at $1,998,976,000 after purchasing an additional 4,680,713 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Swedbank AB lifted its stake in Citigroup by 90.2% in the 4th quarter. Swedbank AB now owns 8,326,745 shares of the company’s stock valued at $586,120,000 after purchasing an additional 3,947,912 shares during the last quarter. 71.72% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

C has been the subject of several recent research reports. Oppenheimer dropped their target price on shares of Citigroup from $110.00 to $102.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research report on Friday, January 3rd. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods upped their price objective on shares of Citigroup from $85.00 to $92.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Thursday, January 16th. Wells Fargo & Company upped their price objective on shares of Citigroup from $85.00 to $95.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Friday, November 15th. Evercore ISI upped their price objective on shares of Citigroup from $69.00 to $79.00 and gave the company an “in-line” rating in a research report on Thursday, January 16th. Finally, Barclays upgraded shares of Citigroup from an “equal weight” rating to an “overweight” rating and upped their price objective for the company from $70.00 to $95.00 in a research report on Monday, January 6th. Four investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and twelve have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Citigroup has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $83.93.

About Citigroup

Citigroup Inc, a diversified financial service holding company, provides various financial product and services to consumers, corporations, governments, and institutions worldwide. It operates through five segments: Services, Markets, Banking, U.S. Personal Banking, and Wealth. The Services segment includes Treasury and Trade Solutions, which provides cash management, trade, and working capital solutions to multinational corporations, financial institutions, and public sector organizations; and Securities Services, such as cross-border support for clients, local market expertise, post-trade technologies, data solutions, and various securities services solutions.