Moelis & Company (NYSE:MC) Cut to “Market Perform” at Keefe, Bruyette & Woods

Keefe, Bruyette & Woods lowered shares of Moelis & Company (NYSE:MC) from an outperform rating to a market perform rating in a report published on Tuesday morning, MarketBeat.com reports. They currently have $80.00 price target on the asset manager’s stock, up from their prior price target of $78.00.

Several other analysts have also weighed in on the company. Weiss Ratings reissued a “hold (c+)” rating on shares of Moelis & Company in a report on Monday, December 8th. Seaport Res Ptn upgraded shares of Moelis & Company from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Thursday, October 30th. UBS Group began coverage on shares of Moelis & Company in a research note on Thursday, December 11th. They issued a “neutral” rating and a $70.00 price objective for the company. Morgan Stanley lifted their target price on shares of Moelis & Company from $74.00 to $90.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Monday, September 8th. Finally, BMO Capital Markets began coverage on shares of Moelis & Company in a research note on Friday, October 3rd. They issued a “market perform” rating and a $74.00 target price on the stock. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, two have issued a Buy rating and nine have assigned a Hold rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, Moelis & Company presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $71.63.

Moelis & Company Trading Up 1.1%

Shares of Moelis & Company stock opened at $70.12 on Tuesday. Moelis & Company has a 1 year low of $47.00 and a 1 year high of $82.89. The company’s fifty day simple moving average is $65.99 and its 200-day simple moving average is $67.42. The company has a market cap of $5.49 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 23.45, a PEG ratio of 0.73 and a beta of 1.90.

Moelis & Company (NYSE:MC) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, October 29th. The asset manager reported $0.68 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.57 by $0.11. The company had revenue of $356.89 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $336.14 million. Moelis & Company had a net margin of 15.98% and a return on equity of 45.62%. The business’s quarterly revenue was up 30.4% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period last year, the business posted $0.22 EPS. As a group, research analysts forecast that Moelis & Company will post 2.97 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Moelis & Company Announces Dividend

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, December 4th. Stockholders of record on Monday, November 10th were given a dividend of $0.65 per share. This represents a $2.60 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 3.7%. The ex-dividend date was Monday, November 10th. Moelis & Company’s dividend payout ratio is presently 86.96%.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Large investors have recently bought and sold shares of the company. Tudor Investment Corp ET AL acquired a new stake in shares of Moelis & Company in the 3rd quarter valued at $5,718,000. Allworth Financial LP increased its position in Moelis & Company by 153.9% in the third quarter. Allworth Financial LP now owns 419 shares of the asset manager’s stock worth $30,000 after purchasing an additional 254 shares during the period. Swiss Life Asset Management Ltd bought a new stake in Moelis & Company during the 3rd quarter worth about $244,000. JPMorgan Chase & Co. lifted its position in Moelis & Company by 1.8% during the 3rd quarter. JPMorgan Chase & Co. now owns 962,778 shares of the asset manager’s stock valued at $68,665,000 after purchasing an additional 17,220 shares during the period. Finally, CIBC Bancorp USA Inc. acquired a new position in Moelis & Company during the 3rd quarter valued at about $565,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 91.53% of the company’s stock.

About Moelis & Company

Moelis & Co operates as a holding company. It engages in the provision of financial advisory, capital raising and asset management services to a client base including corporations, governments, sovereign wealth funds and financial sponsors. The firm focuses on clients including large public multinational corporations, middle market private companies, financial sponsors, entrepreneurs and governments.