AEGON ASSET MANAGEMENT UK Plc Buys 65,048 Shares of Arista Networks, Inc. $ANET

Key Points

• AEGON Asset Management UK increased its Arista Networks stake by 18% in Q1, buying 65,048 shares and bringing its total to 427,091 shares valued at about $52.4 million.
• Insider selling was significant, with CEO Jayshree Ullal and major shareholder Andreas Bechtolsheim both selling shares recently; insiders sold 2.6 million shares in the last quarter overall.
• Arista’s business remained strong, as the company beat quarterly EPS and revenue estimates, posted 35.1% year-over-year revenue growth, and analysts maintained a consensus Buy rating with an average price target of $187.63.

AEGON ASSET MANAGEMENT UK Plc lifted its position in Arista Networks, Inc. (NYSE:ANET - Free Report) by 18.0% during the first quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The firm owned 427,091 shares of the technology company's stock after acquiring an additional 65,048 shares during the period. AEGON ASSET MANAGEMENT UK Plc's holdings in Arista Networks were worth $52,434,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other institutional investors have also recently bought and sold shares of the company. Board of the Pension Protection Fund bought a new stake in Arista Networks in the fourth quarter valued at approximately $26,000. Sankala Group LLC bought a new position in shares of Arista Networks during the fourth quarter worth $27,000. Prosperity Bancshares Inc bought a new position in shares of Arista Networks during the fourth quarter worth $28,000. Knuff & Co LLC acquired a new position in shares of Arista Networks in the 3rd quarter valued at $29,000. Finally, Ameliora Wealth Management Ltd. acquired a new position in shares of Arista Networks in the 4th quarter valued at $30,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 82.47% of the company's stock.

Insider Transactions at Arista Networks

In other news, CEO Jayshree Ullal sold 428,000 shares of the company's stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, April 22nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $177.44, for a total transaction of $75,944,320.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer directly owned 5,209,207 shares of the company's stock, valued at $924,321,690.08. This represents a 7.59% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this hyperlink. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, major shareholder Andreas Bechtolsheim sold 260,000 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Monday, June 15th. The stock was sold at an average price of $165.57, for a total value of $43,048,200.00. Following the transaction, the insider owned 182,543,048 shares of the company's stock, valued at approximately $30,223,652,457.36. The trade was a 0.14% 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. In the last quarter, insiders have sold 2,603,747 shares of company stock valued at $423,901,619. Corporate insiders own 2.70% of the company's stock.

Arista Networks Stock Up 0.1%

Shares of ANET stock opened at $169.84 on Friday. The firm has a fifty day moving average of $158.10 and a 200-day moving average of $141.44. Arista Networks, Inc. has a 12-month low of $85.58 and a 12-month high of $179.80. The company has a market capitalization of $213.86 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 58.16, a P/E/G ratio of 2.62 and a beta of 1.61.

Arista Networks (NYSE:ANET - Get Free Report) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, May 5th. The technology company reported $0.87 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts' consensus estimates of $0.81 by $0.06. The business had revenue of $2.71 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $2.62 billion. Arista Networks had a net margin of 38.32% and a return on equity of 30.10%. The firm's quarterly revenue was up 35.1% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period last year, the business posted $0.65 earnings per share. Arista Networks has set its Q2 2026 guidance at 0.880-0.880 EPS. On average, equities analysts expect that Arista Networks, Inc. will post 3.27 EPS for the current year.

Analyst Ratings Changes

ANET has been the topic of several research analyst reports. TD Cowen reaffirmed a "buy" rating and set a $200.00 price objective (up from $170.00) on shares of Arista Networks in a research note on Wednesday, May 6th. Zacks Research cut Arista Networks from a "strong-buy" rating to a "hold" rating in a research note on Thursday, May 14th. Wolfe Research reissued an "outperform" rating and issued a $175.00 target price on shares of Arista Networks in a research note on Wednesday, June 10th. UBS Group restated a "buy" rating and issued a $187.00 price target (up from $177.00) on shares of Arista Networks in a report on Wednesday, May 6th. Finally, Piper Sandler reaffirmed an "overweight" rating and set a $181.00 price target (up from $175.00) on shares of Arista Networks in a research report on Wednesday, May 6th. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty-one have issued a Buy rating and two have given a Hold rating to the company's stock. According to MarketBeat, Arista Networks has a consensus rating of "Buy" and an average target price of $187.63.

Arista Networks Profile

Arista Networks, Inc is a technology company that designs and sells cloud networking solutions for large-scale data centers and enterprise environments. The company is best known for its high-performance switching and routing platforms, which are used to build scalable, low-latency networks for cloud service providers, internet companies, financial services, telecommunications, and enterprise IT. Arista's offerings emphasize programmability, automation and telemetry to support modern, software-driven network architectures.

Central to Arista's product portfolio is its Extensible Operating System (EOS), a modular network operating system that provides consistent programmability, stateful control and advanced visibility across the company's hardware platforms.

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