Employees Retirement System of Texas Reduces Stake in Pan American Silver Corp. $PAAS

Employees Retirement System of Texas lowered its stake in Pan American Silver Corp. (NYSE:PAAS) (TSE:PAAS) by 40.4% in the 4th quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The fund owned 26,321 shares of the basic materials company’s stock after selling 17,843 shares during the period. Employees Retirement System of Texas’ holdings in Pan American Silver were worth $1,364,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Knights of Columbus Asset Advisors LLC grew its position in Pan American Silver by 176.9% in the third quarter. Knights of Columbus Asset Advisors LLC now owns 114,780 shares of the basic materials company’s stock worth $4,445,000 after acquiring an additional 73,326 shares in the last quarter. J. Safra Sarasin Holding AG grew its position in Pan American Silver by 117.9% in the third quarter. J. Safra Sarasin Holding AG now owns 43,946 shares of the basic materials company’s stock worth $1,702,000 after acquiring an additional 23,780 shares in the last quarter. Hollencrest Capital Management grew its position in Pan American Silver by 214.3% in the third quarter. Hollencrest Capital Management now owns 121,633 shares of the basic materials company’s stock worth $4,711,000 after acquiring an additional 82,932 shares in the last quarter. Pinpoint Asset Management Singapore Pte. Ltd. purchased a new position in Pan American Silver during the third quarter worth $1,074,000. Finally, Vanguard Group Inc. boosted its stake in Pan American Silver by 21.2% during the third quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 17,191,611 shares of the basic materials company’s stock worth $666,192,000 after buying an additional 3,006,055 shares during the period. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 55.43% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

PAAS has been the subject of several recent analyst reports. TD Cowen raised shares of Pan American Silver from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and lifted their price objective for the stock from $67.00 to $72.00 in a research note on Tuesday, May 12th. Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce set a $88.00 price objective on shares of Pan American Silver and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research note on Wednesday, February 4th. Weiss Ratings reaffirmed a “buy (b)” rating on shares of Pan American Silver in a research note on Tuesday, May 12th. Wall Street Zen raised shares of Pan American Silver from a “buy” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Monday, May 18th. Finally, TD Securities upgraded Pan American Silver from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and set a $72.00 target price for the company in a research report on Monday, May 11th. Eight research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and two have issued a Hold rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, Pan American Silver has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $68.00.

Pan American Silver Stock Down 3.6%

Shares of PAAS opened at $53.34 on Thursday. The firm has a market capitalization of $22.47 billion, a P/E ratio of 17.15, a P/E/G ratio of 0.44 and a beta of 0.65. Pan American Silver Corp. has a 12-month low of $23.88 and a 12-month high of $69.99. The company has a current ratio of 2.84, a quick ratio of 2.11 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.11. The firm has a fifty day moving average price of $55.17 and a 200-day moving average price of $53.83.

Pan American Silver (NYSE:PAAS) (TSE:PAAS) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, May 5th. The basic materials company reported $1.09 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $1.06 by $0.03. Pan American Silver had a net margin of 31.66% and a return on equity of 19.50%. The company had revenue of $1.15 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.25 billion. During the same quarter last year, the firm posted $0.42 EPS. The firm’s revenue was up 49.3% compared to the same quarter last year. Equities research analysts expect that Pan American Silver Corp. will post 4.65 earnings per share for the current year.

Pan American Silver Announces Dividend

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, June 1st. Stockholders of record on Tuesday, May 19th will be paid a dividend of $0.18 per share. This represents a $0.72 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.3%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Tuesday, May 19th. Pan American Silver’s payout ratio is currently 23.15%.

About Pan American Silver

Pan American Silver Corp. (NYSE: PAAS) is a Vancouver-based mining company and one of the world’s largest primary silver producers. The company’s core activities encompass the exploration, development, extraction and processing of silver, with significant by-product production of gold, zinc and lead. Pan American Silver maintains a vertically integrated operating model, covering the full mining value chain from resource discovery through to refined metal production.

With a geographic footprint concentrated across the Americas, Pan American Silver operates multiple mines in Mexico, Peru, Argentina and Bolivia, and is advancing several development and exploration projects in Chile and Ecuador.