Norges Bank Acquires New Holdings in Dollar General Co. (NYSE:DG)

Norges Bank bought a new position in Dollar General Co. (NYSE:DG) in the fourth quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The institutional investor bought 1,852,037 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $140,421,000.

Other hedge funds have also modified their holdings of the company. First Eagle Investment Management LLC bought a new position in shares of Dollar General during the 4th quarter worth approximately $399,433,000. ACR Alpine Capital Research LLC grew its holdings in Dollar General by 8,426.1% in the fourth quarter. ACR Alpine Capital Research LLC now owns 4,041,471 shares of the company’s stock worth $306,424,000 after purchasing an additional 3,994,070 shares during the last quarter. Pzena Investment Management LLC increased its position in shares of Dollar General by 14.9% during the fourth quarter. Pzena Investment Management LLC now owns 11,767,336 shares of the company’s stock worth $892,199,000 after purchasing an additional 1,528,450 shares in the last quarter. State Street Corp lifted its holdings in shares of Dollar General by 8.3% during the 3rd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 9,958,704 shares of the company’s stock valued at $842,208,000 after purchasing an additional 759,869 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Erste Asset Management GmbH acquired a new stake in shares of Dollar General in the 4th quarter worth $49,198,000. 91.77% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of equities research analysts have commented on DG shares. Evercore ISI decreased their price target on Dollar General from $97.00 to $95.00 and set an “in-line” rating for the company in a research note on Tuesday, December 3rd. Citigroup decreased their price objective on shares of Dollar General from $73.00 to $69.00 and set a “sell” rating for the company in a research report on Friday, March 7th. UBS Group lowered their target price on shares of Dollar General from $108.00 to $95.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research note on Thursday, March 6th. Truist Financial decreased their price target on shares of Dollar General from $94.00 to $83.00 and set a “hold” rating for the company in a report on Friday, December 6th. Finally, Gordon Haskett lowered shares of Dollar General from a “strong-buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Tuesday, January 28th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, fifteen have given a hold rating and eight have issued a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, Dollar General has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $92.26.

Dollar General Stock Performance

Shares of NYSE DG opened at $88.05 on Tuesday. The company has a market capitalization of $19.37 billion, a PE ratio of 14.51, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.18 and a beta of 0.44. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.78, a quick ratio of 0.15 and a current ratio of 1.15. The company’s fifty day moving average price is $76.51 and its 200 day moving average price is $77.86. Dollar General Co. has a 1 year low of $66.43 and a 1 year high of $164.12.

Dollar General (NYSE:DG) last posted its earnings results on Thursday, March 13th. The company reported $1.68 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $1.51 by $0.17. Dollar General had a net margin of 3.33% and a return on equity of 18.85%. The business had revenue of $10.30 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $10.26 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the company posted $1.83 EPS. The company’s revenue for the quarter was up 4.5% on a year-over-year basis. On average, research analysts predict that Dollar General Co. will post 5.75 earnings per share for the current year.

Dollar General Announces Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Tuesday, April 22nd. Stockholders of record on Tuesday, April 8th will be paid a dividend of $0.59 per share. This represents a $2.36 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 2.68%. The ex-dividend date is Tuesday, April 8th. Dollar General’s payout ratio is 46.18%.

About Dollar General

Dollar General Corporation, a discount retailer, provides various merchandise products in the southern, southwestern, midwestern, and eastern United States. It offers consumable products, including paper and cleaning products, such as paper towels, bath tissues, paper dinnerware, trash and storage bags, disinfectants, and laundry products; packaged food comprising cereals, pasta, canned soups, fruits and vegetables, condiments, spices, sugar, and flour; and perishables that include milk, eggs, bread, refrigerated and frozen food, beer, and wine.