Ilmarinen Mutual Pension Insurance Co Buys Shares of 11,717 F5, Inc. $FFIV

Ilmarinen Mutual Pension Insurance Co bought a new stake in shares of F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV) in the fourth quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The firm bought 11,717 shares of the network technology company’s stock, valued at approximately $2,991,000.

A number of other hedge funds have also added to or reduced their stakes in FFIV. Northwestern Mutual Wealth Management Co. raised its stake in F5 by 15,103.5% during the 4th quarter. Northwestern Mutual Wealth Management Co. now owns 1,170,216 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $298,709,000 after buying an additional 1,162,519 shares during the last quarter. UBS Group AG raised its stake in F5 by 141.2% during the 4th quarter. UBS Group AG now owns 1,023,869 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $261,353,000 after buying an additional 599,384 shares during the last quarter. William Blair Investment Management LLC purchased a new stake in shares of F5 during the 4th quarter valued at about $140,460,000. M&T Bank Corp increased its position in shares of F5 by 17,181.1% during the 4th quarter. M&T Bank Corp now owns 309,158 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $78,916,000 after purchasing an additional 307,369 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Caisse de depot et placement du Quebec increased its position in shares of F5 by 169.2% during the 3rd quarter. Caisse de depot et placement du Quebec now owns 462,740 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $149,553,000 after purchasing an additional 290,828 shares during the last quarter. 90.66% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

F5 Price Performance

NASDAQ:FFIV opened at $383.45 on Friday. The business has a fifty day moving average price of $327.19 and a 200-day moving average price of $285.86. The firm has a market capitalization of $21.63 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 31.46, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 8.82 and a beta of 1.00. F5, Inc. has a one year low of $223.76 and a one year high of $399.59.

F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) last released its earnings results on Tuesday, April 28th. The network technology company reported $3.90 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $3.47 by $0.43. The company had revenue of $811.70 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $783.82 million. F5 had a net margin of 21.96% and a return on equity of 21.50%. The firm’s quarterly revenue was up 11.0% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the prior year, the firm posted $3.42 EPS. F5 has set its Q3 2026 guidance at 3.910-4.030 EPS and its FY 2026 guidance at 16.250-16.550 EPS. On average, equities research analysts expect that F5, Inc. will post 12.79 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other F5 news, CEO Francois Locoh-Donou sold 3,783 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, May 5th. The stock was sold at an average price of $337.39, for a total transaction of $1,276,346.37. Following the sale, the chief executive officer directly owned 146,989 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $49,592,618.71. This trade represents a 2.51% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, EVP Thomas Dean Fountain sold 1,328 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, May 5th. The shares were sold at an average price of $330.58, for a total value of $439,010.24. Following the sale, the executive vice president directly owned 8,060 shares in the company, valued at approximately $2,664,474.80. This represents a 14.15% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The SEC filing for this sale provides additional information. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Insiders sold a total of 24,491 shares of company stock worth $7,966,227 in the last ninety days. Corporate insiders own 0.48% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several research firms have recently commented on FFIV. Royal Bank Of Canada reaffirmed an “outperform” rating and set a $425.00 price target on shares of F5 in a research report on Friday. Morgan Stanley upped their price target on shares of F5 from $340.00 to $380.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Wednesday, May 20th. Weiss Ratings raised shares of F5 from a “hold (c+)” rating to a “buy (b-)” rating in a research report on Monday, March 30th. Needham & Company LLC reaffirmed a “hold” rating on shares of F5 in a research report on Wednesday, April 29th. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. upped their price objective on F5 from $355.00 to $365.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research note on Wednesday, April 29th. Six investment analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, five have issued a Hold rating and one has given a Sell rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the company has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $379.89.

About F5

F5 Inc (NASDAQ:FFIV) specializes in application services and delivery networking, helping organizations ensure the availability, performance and security of their applications. The company’s core offerings include advanced load balancing, traffic management and application security solutions designed to optimize user experiences and protect against threats such as distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks and web application exploits.

At the heart of F5’s product portfolio is the BIG-IP platform, which provides a suite of software modules for local and global traffic management, secure web application firewalling and DNS service delivery.