Celanese Co. (NYSE:CE) Shares Bought by Edmond DE Rothschild Holding S.A.

Edmond DE Rothschild Holding S.A. boosted its position in Celanese Co. (NYSE:CE) by 163.3% during the fourth quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The institutional investor owned 2,854 shares of the basic materials company’s stock after buying an additional 1,770 shares during the period. Edmond DE Rothschild Holding S.A.’s holdings in Celanese were worth $198,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds have also made changes to their positions in CE. Brandywine Global Investment Management LLC boosted its stake in shares of Celanese by 1,453.1% during the 4th quarter. Brandywine Global Investment Management LLC now owns 953,802 shares of the basic materials company’s stock worth $66,013,000 after acquiring an additional 892,391 shares in the last quarter. Allianz SE acquired a new stake in Celanese in the fourth quarter valued at $275,000. Allstate Corp acquired a new stake in Celanese in the 4th quarter valued at about $225,000. DnB Asset Management AS increased its stake in shares of Celanese by 8.0% during the 4th quarter. DnB Asset Management AS now owns 23,201 shares of the basic materials company’s stock worth $1,606,000 after purchasing an additional 1,726 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Pictet Asset Management Holding SA grew its holdings in Celanese by 3.5% during the 4th quarter. Pictet Asset Management Holding SA now owns 57,706 shares of the basic materials company’s stock valued at $3,994,000 after buying an additional 1,956 shares during the last quarter. 98.87% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of equities research analysts have recently commented on CE shares. JPMorgan Chase & Co. lowered their price target on shares of Celanese from $92.00 to $54.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a report on Thursday, February 20th. UBS Group cut their price target on Celanese from $72.00 to $60.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a report on Thursday, February 20th. KeyCorp upgraded Celanese from a “sector weight” rating to an “overweight” rating and set a $76.00 price objective on the stock in a report on Friday, March 21st. Robert W. Baird dropped their target price on Celanese from $110.00 to $67.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research note on Thursday, February 20th. Finally, Citigroup raised Celanese to a “neutral” rating and raised their price target for the stock from $73.00 to $76.00 in a research note on Thursday, January 23rd. Three analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, ten have assigned a hold rating and five have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $66.94.

Celanese Trading Up 2.0 %

NYSE:CE opened at $56.79 on Thursday. The stock has a market cap of $6.21 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of -4.08, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.05 and a beta of 1.23. Celanese Co. has a one year low of $45.94 and a one year high of $171.68. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.98, a quick ratio of 0.76 and a current ratio of 1.34. The business’s 50-day simple moving average is $60.61 and its 200 day simple moving average is $82.98.

Celanese (NYSE:CE) last announced its earnings results on Tuesday, February 18th. The basic materials company reported $1.45 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.25 by $0.20. Celanese had a positive return on equity of 12.86% and a negative net margin of 14.81%. The company had revenue of $2.37 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $2.36 billion. As a group, sell-side analysts predict that Celanese Co. will post 8.79 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Celanese Cuts Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Tuesday, March 11th. Shareholders of record on Tuesday, February 25th were paid a dividend of $0.03 per share. This represents a $0.12 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.21%. The ex-dividend date was Tuesday, February 25th. Celanese’s payout ratio is currently -0.86%.

About Celanese

Celanese Corporation, a chemical and specialty materials company, manufactures and sells high performance engineered polymers in the United States and internationally. It operates through Engineered Materials and Acetyl Chain. The Engineered Materials segment develops, produces, and supplies specialty polymers for automotive and medical applications, as well as for use in industrial products and consumer electronics.