West Tower Group LLC Buys New Shares in Hormel Foods Co. (NYSE:HRL)

West Tower Group LLC bought a new stake in Hormel Foods Co. (NYSE:HRL) in the third quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The fund bought 8,700 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $276,000.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also recently bought and sold shares of the business. Millennium Management LLC lifted its position in Hormel Foods by 15.4% during the second quarter. Millennium Management LLC now owns 3,089,868 shares of the company’s stock valued at $94,210,000 after buying an additional 412,313 shares in the last quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP increased its stake in shares of Hormel Foods by 24.0% in the second quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 2,976,257 shares of the company’s stock worth $90,738,000 after buying an additional 575,378 shares during the last quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. increased its stake in Hormel Foods by 3.7% during the third quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 1,846,936 shares of the company’s stock valued at $58,548,000 after purchasing an additional 66,261 shares during the last quarter. Bank of New York Mellon Corp increased its stake in Hormel Foods by 0.4% during the second quarter. Bank of New York Mellon Corp now owns 1,772,481 shares of the company’s stock valued at $54,043,000 after purchasing an additional 6,315 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Marshall Wace LLP grew its position in shares of Hormel Foods by 86.4% during the second quarter. Marshall Wace LLP now owns 1,602,732 shares of the company’s stock worth $48,867,000 after acquiring an additional 742,859 shares during the last quarter. 40.99% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several research firms recently weighed in on HRL. Citigroup reduced their price objective on shares of Hormel Foods from $36.00 to $35.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a report on Tuesday, November 19th. Stephens began coverage on shares of Hormel Foods in a report on Thursday, October 3rd. They issued an “equal weight” rating and a $31.00 price objective for the company. Finally, BNP Paribas assumed coverage on shares of Hormel Foods in a report on Monday, October 21st. They issued an “underperform” rating and a $28.00 price objective for the company. Two investment analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, four have assigned a hold rating and one has assigned a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Hormel Foods currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $31.29.

Insider Buying and Selling at Hormel Foods

In other Hormel Foods news, EVP Deanna T. Brady sold 51,600 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, September 13th. The shares were sold at an average price of $31.95, for a total transaction of $1,648,620.00. Following the completion of the sale, the executive vice president now directly owns 72,421 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $2,313,850.95. This represents a 41.61 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this hyperlink. Also, SVP Kevin L. Myers sold 10,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, September 18th. The shares were sold at an average price of $32.70, for a total value of $327,000.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the senior vice president now owns 39,050 shares in the company, valued at $1,276,935. This represents a 20.39 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last ninety days, insiders sold 71,400 shares of company stock valued at $2,288,338. 0.69% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Hormel Foods Price Performance

Shares of NYSE HRL opened at $31.44 on Tuesday. Hormel Foods Co. has a twelve month low of $28.51 and a twelve month high of $36.86. The company has a current ratio of 2.29, a quick ratio of 1.03 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.36. The company has a market capitalization of $17.24 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 22.14, a PEG ratio of 3.25 and a beta of 0.26. The firm has a 50-day moving average of $31.02 and a two-hundred day moving average of $31.69.

Hormel Foods (NYSE:HRL) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, September 4th. The company reported $0.37 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.36 by $0.01. Hormel Foods had a net margin of 6.52% and a return on equity of 11.03%. The company had revenue of $2.90 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $2.95 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the firm earned $0.40 earnings per share. The business’s quarterly revenue was down 2.2% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, analysts expect that Hormel Foods Co. will post 1.58 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Hormel Foods Increases Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Tuesday, February 18th. Shareholders of record on Monday, January 13th will be paid a dividend of $0.29 per share. This is a positive change from Hormel Foods’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.28. This represents a $1.16 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 3.69%. Hormel Foods’s dividend payout ratio is currently 79.58%.

About Hormel Foods

Hormel Foods Corporation develops, processes, and distributes various meat, nuts, and other food products to retail, foodservice, deli, and commercial customers in the United States and internationally. It operates through three segments: Retail, Foodservice, and International segments. The company provides various perishable products that include fresh meats, frozen items, refrigerated meal solutions, sausages, hams, guacamoles, and bacons; and shelf-stable products comprising canned luncheon meats, nut butters, snack nuts, chili, shelf-stable microwaveable meals, hash, stews, tortillas, salsas, tortilla chips, nutritional food supplements, and others.