Boston Partners Grows Position in Reliance, Inc. (NYSE:RS)

Boston Partners increased its holdings in Reliance, Inc. (NYSE:RS) by 7.6% in the fourth quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The firm owned 716,280 shares of the industrial products company’s stock after acquiring an additional 50,528 shares during the quarter. Boston Partners owned about 1.32% of Reliance worth $192,894,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission.

A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the business. Quent Capital LLC lifted its stake in Reliance by 4.1% in the fourth quarter. Quent Capital LLC now owns 941 shares of the industrial products company’s stock worth $253,000 after acquiring an additional 37 shares during the period. Johnson Investment Counsel Inc. lifted its stake in Reliance by 0.4% in the fourth quarter. Johnson Investment Counsel Inc. now owns 11,149 shares of the industrial products company’s stock worth $3,002,000 after acquiring an additional 39 shares during the period. Harbor Capital Advisors Inc. raised its holdings in Reliance by 0.6% in the fourth quarter. Harbor Capital Advisors Inc. now owns 7,715 shares of the industrial products company’s stock worth $2,077,000 after purchasing an additional 49 shares in the last quarter. Commonwealth Equity Services LLC raised its holdings in Reliance by 1.3% in the fourth quarter. Commonwealth Equity Services LLC now owns 4,333 shares of the industrial products company’s stock worth $1,167,000 after purchasing an additional 55 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Avantax Advisory Services Inc. raised its holdings in Reliance by 4.8% in the fourth quarter. Avantax Advisory Services Inc. now owns 1,234 shares of the industrial products company’s stock worth $332,000 after purchasing an additional 56 shares in the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 79.26% of the company’s stock.

Reliance Price Performance

Shares of NYSE:RS opened at $280.45 on Wednesday. Reliance, Inc. has a 1-year low of $256.98 and a 1-year high of $342.20. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.10, a current ratio of 3.21 and a quick ratio of 1.58. The business has a fifty day moving average price of $287.30 and a 200-day moving average price of $289.91. The company has a market capitalization of $14.86 billion, a PE ratio of 18.16 and a beta of 0.87.

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

Reliance Increases Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, March 21st. Investors of record on Friday, March 7th will be given a dividend of $1.20 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, March 7th. This is a boost from Reliance’s previous quarterly dividend of $1.10. This represents a $4.80 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.71%. Reliance’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 31.09%.

Insider Activity at Reliance

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

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

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

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.