De Lisle Partners LLP Takes $824,000 Position in Noble Corporation PLC $NE

De Lisle Partners LLP bought a new stake in Noble Corporation PLC (NYSE:NE) during the fourth quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The institutional investor bought 29,186 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $824,000.

A number of other institutional investors have also modified their holdings of the business. Hosking Partners LLP increased its holdings in shares of Noble by 10.0% in the 4th quarter. Hosking Partners LLP now owns 1,140,328 shares of the company’s stock valued at $32,203,000 after acquiring an additional 103,477 shares during the period. Hara Capital LLC acquired a new position in shares of Noble in the 4th quarter valued at $4,902,000. SG Americas Securities LLC increased its holdings in shares of Noble by 424.2% in the 4th quarter. SG Americas Securities LLC now owns 440,342 shares of the company’s stock valued at $12,435,000 after acquiring an additional 356,333 shares during the period. GAMMA Investing LLC increased its holdings in shares of Noble by 77.8% in the 4th quarter. GAMMA Investing LLC now owns 1,440 shares of the company’s stock valued at $41,000 after acquiring an additional 630 shares during the period. Finally, Russell Investments Group Ltd. increased its holdings in shares of Noble by 1.1% in the 3rd quarter. Russell Investments Group Ltd. now owns 886,766 shares of the company’s stock valued at $25,078,000 after acquiring an additional 9,442 shares during the period. 68.14% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

NE has been the topic of a number of recent research reports. Evercore set a $59.00 target price on shares of Noble in a report on Monday, April 27th. Susquehanna lifted their target price on shares of Noble from $45.00 to $50.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a report on Tuesday, April 7th. Weiss Ratings cut shares of Noble from a “hold (c+)” rating to a “hold (c)” rating in a report on Wednesday, April 29th. Barclays raised shares of Noble from an “equal weight” rating to an “overweight” rating and lifted their target price for the company from $50.00 to $56.00 in a report on Thursday, May 7th. Finally, Zacks Research raised shares of Noble from a “strong sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Tuesday, May 19th. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and nine have issued a Hold rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $45.38.

Insider Transactions at Noble

In related news, CFO Richard B. Barker sold 150,000 shares of Noble stock in a transaction on Wednesday, March 18th. The shares were sold at an average price of $46.63, for a total value of $6,994,500.00. Following the transaction, the chief financial officer directly owned 164,781 shares in the company, valued at $7,683,738.03. This trade represents a 47.65% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. Also, SVP Joey M. Kawaja sold 40,000 shares of Noble stock in a transaction on Tuesday, May 5th. The shares were sold at an average price of $49.85, for a total transaction of $1,994,000.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the senior vice president owned 40,071 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,997,539.35. This trade represents a 49.96% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. Insiders sold a total of 343,550 shares of company stock worth $16,366,436 over the last quarter. 1.50% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Noble Stock Performance

NYSE:NE opened at $46.92 on Friday. The firm’s fifty day moving average price is $49.34 and its 200 day moving average price is $41.64. Noble Corporation PLC has a 1-year low of $25.24 and a 1-year high of $54.98. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.42, a current ratio of 1.99 and a quick ratio of 1.99. The firm has a market cap of $7.49 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 32.81 and a beta of 0.89.

Noble (NYSE:NE) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Monday, April 27th. The company reported $0.26 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.21 by $0.05. Noble had a net margin of 7.17% and a return on equity of 2.32%. The firm had revenue of $785.69 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $730.47 million. During the same period last year, the firm posted $0.26 EPS. Noble’s quarterly revenue was down 10.1% on a year-over-year basis. On average, sell-side analysts expect that Noble Corporation PLC will post 0.94 EPS for the current year.

Noble Announces Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, June 25th. Investors of record on Thursday, June 4th will be given a $0.50 dividend. This represents a $2.00 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 4.3%. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, June 4th. Noble’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 139.86%.

About Noble

Noble (NYSE: NE) is an offshore drilling company that provides drilling services to the global oil and gas industry. The firm operates a fleet of mobile offshore drilling units and delivers contract drilling solutions for exploration and production activities. Its core business centers on executing drilling programs for upstream energy companies across a range of water depths and operating environments.

Products and services include the operation and management of offshore drilling rigs — such as drillships, semisubmersibles and jackups — along with associated technical, engineering and project management services.