Gamco Investors INC. ET AL Sells 38,800 Shares of AllianceBernstein Holding L.P. $AB

Gamco Investors INC. ET AL lowered its stake in AllianceBernstein Holding L.P. (NYSE:AB) by 53.9% during the 2nd quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The institutional investor owned 33,198 shares of the asset manager’s stock after selling 38,800 shares during the quarter. Gamco Investors INC. ET AL’s holdings in AllianceBernstein were worth $1,355,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other large investors have also added to or reduced their stakes in AB. DAVENPORT & Co LLC boosted its holdings in AllianceBernstein by 0.8% in the second quarter. DAVENPORT & Co LLC now owns 37,022 shares of the asset manager’s stock worth $1,512,000 after acquiring an additional 300 shares in the last quarter. Concurrent Investment Advisors LLC increased its holdings in shares of AllianceBernstein by 2.8% during the second quarter. Concurrent Investment Advisors LLC now owns 17,256 shares of the asset manager’s stock valued at $705,000 after acquiring an additional 465 shares in the last quarter. Oak Associates Ltd. OH raised its position in shares of AllianceBernstein by 3.0% in the 2nd quarter. Oak Associates Ltd. OH now owns 23,711 shares of the asset manager’s stock worth $968,000 after purchasing an additional 690 shares during the last quarter. Koshinski Asset Management Inc. raised its position in shares of AllianceBernstein by 12.8% in the 2nd quarter. Koshinski Asset Management Inc. now owns 6,165 shares of the asset manager’s stock worth $252,000 after purchasing an additional 700 shares during the last quarter. Finally, MAI Capital Management boosted its stake in AllianceBernstein by 5.9% in the 1st quarter. MAI Capital Management now owns 13,229 shares of the asset manager’s stock worth $507,000 after purchasing an additional 741 shares in the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 19.25% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of analysts have weighed in on AB shares. Bank of America raised their price objective on shares of AllianceBernstein from $41.00 to $42.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Thursday, October 2nd. Weiss Ratings reiterated a “hold (c)” rating on shares of AllianceBernstein in a research note on Wednesday, October 8th. Cowen reissued a “hold” rating on shares of AllianceBernstein in a research report on Friday, October 24th. TD Cowen boosted their price objective on shares of AllianceBernstein from $36.50 to $40.00 and gave the stock a “hold” rating in a report on Friday, October 24th. Finally, Zacks Research cut AllianceBernstein from a “strong-buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Tuesday, December 2nd. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a Buy rating and eight have given a Hold rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, AllianceBernstein currently has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $41.83.

AllianceBernstein Stock Up 0.8%

Shares of NYSE AB opened at $40.93 on Thursday. The firm’s 50-day moving average price is $39.82 and its 200-day moving average price is $39.95. AllianceBernstein Holding L.P. has a 52-week low of $32.28 and a 52-week high of $43.30. The company has a market cap of $3.72 billion, a PE ratio of 13.46, a PEG ratio of 1.26 and a beta of 0.86.

AllianceBernstein (NYSE:AB) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, October 23rd. The asset manager reported $0.86 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.85 by $0.01. AllianceBernstein had a net margin of 7.09% and a return on equity of 20.56%. The company had revenue of $884.67 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $900.69 million. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm earned $0.77 earnings per share. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 1.3% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, equities research analysts anticipate that AllianceBernstein Holding L.P. will post 3.58 EPS for the current fiscal year.

AllianceBernstein Increases Dividend

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, November 20th. Stockholders of record on Monday, November 3rd were paid a $0.86 dividend. This is an increase from AllianceBernstein’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.76. The ex-dividend date was Monday, November 3rd. This represents a $3.44 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 8.4%. AllianceBernstein’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 113.16%.

About AllianceBernstein

AllianceBernstein Holding L.P. is a publicly owned investment manager. The firm is a related adviser The firm manages separate client focused portfolios for its clients. The firm primarily invests in common and preferred stocks, warrants and convertible securities, government and corporate fxed-income securities, commodities, currencies, real estate-related assets and infation-protected securities.