Inspire Advisors LLC Increases Stock Position in Pentair plc (NYSE:PNR)

Inspire Advisors LLC boosted its holdings in Pentair plc (NYSE:PNR) by 1.6% in the 3rd quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The fund owned 8,121 shares of the industrial products company’s stock after purchasing an additional 130 shares during the quarter. Inspire Advisors LLC’s holdings in Pentair were worth $794,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other large investors have also recently bought and sold shares of PNR. DekaBank Deutsche Girozentrale raised its holdings in shares of Pentair by 352.5% in the first quarter. DekaBank Deutsche Girozentrale now owns 1,577,208 shares of the industrial products company’s stock valued at $134,695,000 after buying an additional 1,228,635 shares during the last quarter. Swedbank AB acquired a new position in shares of Pentair in the first quarter valued at approximately $97,083,000. Massachusetts Financial Services Co. MA increased its holdings in shares of Pentair by 91.7% in the second quarter. Massachusetts Financial Services Co. MA now owns 2,082,362 shares of the industrial products company’s stock valued at $159,655,000 after purchasing an additional 996,325 shares during the period. Interval Partners LP lifted its holdings in shares of Pentair by 289.6% during the second quarter. Interval Partners LP now owns 956,117 shares of the industrial products company’s stock worth $73,305,000 after purchasing an additional 710,703 shares during the period. Finally, AMF Tjanstepension AB purchased a new position in Pentair in the 1st quarter valued at $45,096,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 92.37% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of brokerages have commented on PNR. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft upped their price objective on shares of Pentair from $90.00 to $98.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Wednesday, July 24th. Barclays raised their price objective on shares of Pentair from $96.00 to $105.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 2nd. Mizuho lifted their price objective on Pentair from $100.00 to $110.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Thursday. Northcoast Research downgraded Pentair from a “buy” rating to a “neutral” rating in a research note on Friday, July 19th. Finally, StockNews.com upgraded Pentair from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research note on Wednesday, July 24th. Five research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and eleven have assigned a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, the company has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $95.93.

Pentair Stock Performance

Shares of PNR opened at $99.04 on Friday. Pentair plc has a 12-month low of $57.18 and a 12-month high of $99.95. The stock has a market cap of $16.39 billion, a P/E ratio of 25.07, a PEG ratio of 1.77 and a beta of 1.20. The company has a current ratio of 1.65, a quick ratio of 0.96 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.51. The company has a 50-day moving average of $91.36 and a two-hundred day moving average of $84.40.

Pentair (NYSE:PNR) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, July 23rd. The industrial products company reported $1.22 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $1.14 by $0.08. The firm had revenue of $1.10 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.09 billion. Pentair had a return on equity of 20.39% and a net margin of 16.05%. The company’s quarterly revenue was up 1.6% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the firm posted $1.03 EPS. As a group, research analysts predict that Pentair plc will post 4.26 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Pentair Announces Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, November 1st. Shareholders of record on Friday, October 18th will be issued a $0.23 dividend. The ex-dividend date is Friday, October 18th. This represents a $0.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.93%. Pentair’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 23.29%.

Pentair Profile

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.