Dun & Bradstreet (NYSE:DNB) Earns Buy Rating from Needham & Company LLC

Needham & Company LLC reiterated their buy rating on shares of Dun & Bradstreet (NYSE:DNB) in a research note released on Thursday morning, Benzinga reports. Needham & Company LLC currently has a $17.00 price objective on the business services provider’s stock.

Other equities analysts also recently issued reports about the company. Jefferies Financial Group dropped their target price on Dun & Bradstreet from $14.00 to $13.00 and set a buy rating for the company in a research report on Friday, April 12th. The Goldman Sachs Group lifted their price objective on shares of Dun & Bradstreet from $10.30 to $11.50 and gave the company a neutral rating in a report on Friday, February 16th. Finally, Raymond James upgraded shares of Dun & Bradstreet from an outperform rating to a strong-buy rating and set a $18.00 target price on the stock in a report on Friday, January 5th. Four research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, three have assigned a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus target price of $13.64.

Dun & Bradstreet Stock Performance

Shares of DNB stock traded up $0.23 during trading hours on Thursday, hitting $9.72. The company had a trading volume of 3,862,224 shares, compared to its average volume of 3,048,875. Dun & Bradstreet has a fifty-two week low of $8.68 and a fifty-two week high of $12.62. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.04, a quick ratio of 0.63 and a current ratio of 0.62. The company’s fifty day moving average is $9.81 and its 200 day moving average is $10.44.

Dun & Bradstreet (NYSE:DNB) last released its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, February 15th. The business services provider reported $0.32 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.31 by $0.01. Dun & Bradstreet had a positive return on equity of 10.99% and a negative net margin of 1.56%. The business had revenue of $630.40 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $623.19 million. During the same period last year, the business posted $0.28 earnings per share. The company’s quarterly revenue was up 5.9% on a year-over-year basis. Equities research analysts anticipate that Dun & Bradstreet will post 0.88 earnings per share for the current year.

Dun & Bradstreet Announces Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, June 20th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, June 6th will be given a $0.05 dividend. This represents a $0.20 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 2.06%. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, June 6th. Dun & Bradstreet’s dividend payout ratio is presently -250.00%.

Insider Activity

In other news, Director Cannae Holdings, Inc. sold 10,000,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, March 18th. The stock was sold at an average price of $10.09, for a total transaction of $100,900,000.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the director now directly owns 69,048,691 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $696,701,292.19. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available at this hyperlink. Company insiders own 10.00% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Trading of Dun & Bradstreet

A number of hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in DNB. Massachusetts Financial Services Co. MA grew its stake in shares of Dun & Bradstreet by 29.1% in the 3rd quarter. Massachusetts Financial Services Co. MA now owns 35,527,102 shares of the business services provider’s stock valued at $354,916,000 after purchasing an additional 8,009,051 shares during the last quarter. Shapiro Capital Management LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Dun & Bradstreet in the third quarter valued at about $35,214,000. FMR LLC increased its stake in shares of Dun & Bradstreet by 83.8% during the third quarter. FMR LLC now owns 6,916,851 shares of the business services provider’s stock worth $69,099,000 after acquiring an additional 3,153,804 shares during the period. Norges Bank purchased a new position in Dun & Bradstreet during the fourth quarter worth about $35,820,000. Finally, Confluence Investment Management LLC purchased a new position in shares of Dun & Bradstreet during the 1st quarter worth approximately $29,736,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 86.68% of the company’s stock.

About Dun & Bradstreet

Dun & Bradstreet Holdings, Inc, together with its subsidiaries, provides business-to-business data and analytics in North America and internationally. It offers finance and risk solutions, including D&B Finance Analytics, an online application that offers clients real time access to its information, comprehensive monitoring, and portfolio analysis; D&B Direct, an application programming interface (API) that delivers risk and financial data directly into enterprise applications for real-time credit decision-making; D&B Small Business, a suite of tools that allows SMBs to monitor and build their business credit file; D&B Enterprise Risk Assessment Manager, a solution for managing and automating credit decisioning and reporting; and D&B Risk Analytics, a subscription-based online application that offers clients real-time access to complete and up-to-date global information to mitigate supply chain risk, regulatory risk, and ESG assessment, as well as other related risks; Risk Guardian, a subscription-based online application that offers real-time access to Northern Europe information, monitoring, and portfolio analysis; and D&B Beneficial Ownership that offers risk intelligence on ultimate beneficial ownership.