National Pension Service Buys 260,668 Shares of Pentair plc (NYSE:PNR)

National Pension Service grew its stake in shares of Pentair plc (NYSE:PNR) by 726.4% in the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the SEC. The firm owned 296,554 shares of the industrial products company’s stock after acquiring an additional 260,668 shares during the quarter. National Pension Service owned about 0.18% of Pentair worth $29,845,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other institutional investors have also recently modified their holdings of PNR. Private Advisor Group LLC lifted its position in shares of Pentair by 15.7% during the 3rd quarter. Private Advisor Group LLC now owns 5,395 shares of the industrial products company’s stock valued at $528,000 after acquiring an additional 734 shares during the period. State of Alaska Department of Revenue lifted its position in shares of Pentair by 7.2% during the 3rd quarter. State of Alaska Department of Revenue now owns 19,235 shares of the industrial products company’s stock worth $1,880,000 after buying an additional 1,300 shares during the last quarter. First Trust Direct Indexing L.P. lifted its position in shares of Pentair by 5.0% during the 3rd quarter. First Trust Direct Indexing L.P. now owns 4,332 shares of the industrial products company’s stock worth $424,000 after buying an additional 205 shares during the last quarter. Pinnacle Associates Ltd. lifted its position in shares of Pentair by 13.1% during the 3rd quarter. Pinnacle Associates Ltd. now owns 10,131 shares of the industrial products company’s stock worth $991,000 after buying an additional 1,171 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Creative Financial Designs Inc. ADV lifted its position in shares of Pentair by 10.0% during the 3rd quarter. Creative Financial Designs Inc. ADV now owns 5,321 shares of the industrial products company’s stock worth $520,000 after buying an additional 484 shares during the last quarter. 92.37% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several analysts recently weighed in on the company. Royal Bank of Canada restated an “outperform” rating and set a $115.00 price objective on shares of Pentair in a research report on Thursday, November 21st. Northcoast Research upgraded Pentair from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Wednesday, February 5th. Citigroup dropped their price objective on Pentair from $126.00 to $119.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research report on Monday, January 13th. Barclays increased their target price on Pentair from $108.00 to $120.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Thursday, December 5th. Finally, Oppenheimer increased their target price on Pentair from $110.00 to $115.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Wednesday, November 13th. Five analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, eleven have given a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $111.25.

Pentair Trading Up 1.4 %

Shares of PNR stock opened at $94.29 on Friday. The stock has a market cap of $15.54 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 25.21, a PEG ratio of 1.87 and a beta of 1.20. The stock has a 50-day moving average of $99.52 and a 200-day moving average of $98.44. The company has a current ratio of 1.60, a quick ratio of 0.92 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.46. Pentair plc has a 1-year low of $72.63 and a 1-year high of $110.71.

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

Pentair Dividend Announcement

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, May 2nd. Stockholders of record on Friday, April 18th will be paid a $0.25 dividend. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, April 17th. This represents a $1.00 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.06%. Pentair’s payout ratio is 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.