Abacus Planning Group Inc. Purchases 1,373 Shares of W.R. Berkley Corporation $WRB

Abacus Planning Group Inc. increased its position in W.R. Berkley Corporation (NYSE:WRB) by 47.1% in the 2nd quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the SEC. The fund owned 4,287 shares of the insurance provider’s stock after acquiring an additional 1,373 shares during the quarter. Abacus Planning Group Inc.’s holdings in W.R. Berkley were worth $315,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Several other institutional investors have also added to or reduced their stakes in the business. Principal Financial Group Inc. increased its stake in shares of W.R. Berkley by 21.8% in the first quarter. Principal Financial Group Inc. now owns 5,022,039 shares of the insurance provider’s stock worth $357,368,000 after purchasing an additional 900,071 shares in the last quarter. Woodline Partners LP grew its stake in W.R. Berkley by 4,198.9% in the 1st quarter. Woodline Partners LP now owns 777,201 shares of the insurance provider’s stock valued at $55,306,000 after buying an additional 759,122 shares in the last quarter. Cornerstone Investment Partners LLC raised its holdings in W.R. Berkley by 7,314.0% during the 1st quarter. Cornerstone Investment Partners LLC now owns 744,516 shares of the insurance provider’s stock valued at $52,980,000 after acquiring an additional 734,474 shares during the period. Nuveen LLC purchased a new stake in shares of W.R. Berkley during the first quarter worth $44,210,000. Finally, Jacobs Levy Equity Management Inc. boosted its holdings in shares of W.R. Berkley by 60.1% in the first quarter. Jacobs Levy Equity Management Inc. now owns 826,616 shares of the insurance provider’s stock worth $58,822,000 after acquiring an additional 310,313 shares during the period. 68.82% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of research firms recently issued reports on WRB. UBS Group boosted their price objective on W.R. Berkley from $78.00 to $80.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Wednesday, July 9th. Weiss Ratings reiterated a “buy (b)” rating on shares of W.R. Berkley in a research report on Saturday, September 27th. Cantor Fitzgerald upgraded shares of W.R. Berkley to a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Wednesday, August 13th. TD Cowen lowered shares of W.R. Berkley from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating and set a $78.00 target price on the stock. in a report on Friday, June 27th. Finally, Wells Fargo & Company lowered their target price on shares of W.R. Berkley from $71.00 to $68.00 and set an “equal weight” rating on the stock in a research note on Tuesday, July 22nd. One analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, three have given a Buy rating, ten have given a Hold rating and one has issued a Sell rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the stock presently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $72.54.

W.R. Berkley Trading Up 0.9%

Shares of W.R. Berkley stock opened at $76.87 on Friday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.31, a current ratio of 0.37 and a quick ratio of 0.37. W.R. Berkley Corporation has a 1 year low of $55.97 and a 1 year high of $77.31. The firm has a market cap of $29.16 billion, a PE ratio of 17.51, a PEG ratio of 2.63 and a beta of 0.42. The company has a 50 day simple moving average of $72.18 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $71.11.

W.R. Berkley (NYSE:WRB) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Monday, July 21st. The insurance provider reported $1.05 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.03 by $0.02. W.R. Berkley had a net margin of 12.32% and a return on equity of 18.83%. The firm had revenue of $3.10 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $3.10 billion. During the same quarter last year, the company posted $1.04 EPS. Analysts expect that W.R. Berkley Corporation will post 4.33 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

W.R. Berkley Announces Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Tuesday, September 30th. Stockholders of record on Monday, September 22nd were given a dividend of $0.09 per share. The ex-dividend date was Monday, September 22nd. This represents a $0.36 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.5%. W.R. Berkley’s dividend payout ratio is 8.20%.

About W.R. Berkley

W. R. Berkley Corporation, an insurance holding company, operates as a commercial lines writers worldwide. It operates in two segments, Insurance and Reinsurance & Monoline Excess. The Insurance segment underwrites commercial insurance business, including excess and surplus lines, admitted lines, and specialty personal lines.