Black Creek Investment Management Inc. Trims Stake in Alphabet Inc. $GOOGL

Key Points

• Black Creek Investment Management cut its Alphabet stake by 22% in the fourth quarter, selling 19,932 shares and leaving it with 70,595 shares worth about $22.1 million.
• Despite that trim, Alphabet remains widely held by institutions, with 40.03% of shares owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors. Several other funds increased their positions significantly during the quarter.
• Alphabet’s fundamentals and outlook remain strong: the company beat quarterly earnings and revenue estimates, raised its dividend slightly, and analyst sentiment is still broadly positive with a Moderate Buy consensus and an average price target of $413.13.

Black Creek Investment Management Inc. reduced its stake in shares of Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL - Free Report) by 22.0% in the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 70,595 shares of the information services provider's stock after selling 19,932 shares during the quarter. Alphabet accounts for 1.1% of Black Creek Investment Management Inc.'s holdings, making the stock its 16th largest position. Black Creek Investment Management Inc.'s holdings in Alphabet were worth $22,096,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Other institutional investors also recently bought and sold shares of the company. Adams Diversified Equity Fund Inc. increased its position in shares of Alphabet by 0.5% in the fourth quarter. Adams Diversified Equity Fund Inc. now owns 535,500 shares of the information services provider's stock valued at $167,612,000 after buying an additional 2,500 shares in the last quarter. Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership increased its position in shares of Alphabet by 63.2% in the fourth quarter. Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership now owns 8,927,693 shares of the information services provider's stock valued at $2,794,373,000 after buying an additional 3,457,517 shares in the last quarter. Atlas Capital Advisors Inc. purchased a new stake in shares of Alphabet in the fourth quarter valued at approximately $12,077,000. Ally Financial Inc. increased its position in shares of Alphabet by 97.6% in the fourth quarter. Ally Financial Inc. now owns 41,500 shares of the information services provider's stock valued at $12,990,000 after buying an additional 20,500 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Altrafin AG purchased a new stake in shares of Alphabet in the fourth quarter valued at approximately $43,831,000. 40.03% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

More Alphabet News

Here are the key news stories impacting Alphabet this week:

• Positive Sentiment: Alphabet’s drone unit Wing expanded its Walmart partnership into seven more U.S. cities, pushing the service toward nearly 20 markets and signaling that drone delivery is moving from experiment to scalable business. Alphabet's Most Overlooked Division Just Had a Big Week
• Positive Sentiment: Waymo launched a new $29.99 monthly membership program with perks for frequent riders, a move that suggests the robotaxi business is building recurring revenue on top of rapid ride-growth. Waymo launches premier subscription tier for $29.99 a month, starting in select cities
• Positive Sentiment: TD Cowen raised its price target on Alphabet, adding to the bullish analyst backdrop and supporting the view that the stock still has room to run. Alphabet (GOOGL) Among Our Good Stocks to Buy Now
• Positive Sentiment: Bank of America and other commentary highlighted Alphabet as a long-term AI beneficiary, especially as rising model costs could strengthen demand for Google Cloud and infrastructure. Anthropic's Priciest AI Model Yet Is Here. Why Alphabet and Amazon Will Benefit.
• Neutral Sentiment: Alphabet sued an alleged Chinese cybercrime group accused of using Google’s AI tools to run scam operations, which shows the company is actively defending its platform but is not likely to move the stock much on its own. Google sues alleged Chinese cybercrime operation that used AI to send scam texts
• Neutral Sentiment: Some investors noted that Altimeter Capital fully exited its Alphabet stake in Q1, but this appears more like portfolio repositioning than a company-specific warning. Billionaire Brad Gerstner Dumped All of His Alphabet Then Bought 2 Stocks Nobody Expected

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of analysts have recently commented on GOOGL shares. Canaccord Genuity Group boosted their price objective on Alphabet from $415.00 to $450.00 and gave the company a "buy" rating in a research report on Thursday, April 30th. Rosenblatt Securities restated a "neutral" rating and issued a $393.00 price objective on shares of Alphabet in a research report on Thursday, May 21st. Morgan Stanley boosted their price objective on Alphabet from $330.00 to $375.00 and gave the company an "overweight" rating in a research report on Thursday, April 30th. Susquehanna restated a "positive" rating and issued a $460.00 price objective (up from $400.00) on shares of Alphabet in a research report on Thursday, April 30th. Finally, New Street Research boosted their price objective on Alphabet from $450.00 to $455.00 and gave the company a "buy" rating in a research report on Friday, June 5th. Two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, forty-seven have issued a Buy rating and five have given a Hold rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, Alphabet has an average rating of "Moderate Buy" and a consensus price target of $413.13.

Alphabet Stock Performance

Shares of NASDAQ:GOOGL opened at $359.68 on Friday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.16, a current ratio of 1.92 and a quick ratio of 1.92. The business's 50 day moving average price is $360.45 and its 200-day moving average price is $330.26. The firm has a market capitalization of $4.36 trillion, a PE ratio of 27.44, a P/E/G ratio of 1.54 and a beta of 1.23. Alphabet Inc. has a 1 year low of $162.00 and a 1 year high of $408.61.

Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL - Get Free Report) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, April 29th. The information services provider reported $5.11 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts' consensus estimates of $2.64 by $2.47. The firm had revenue of $109.90 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $106.98 billion. Alphabet had a return on equity of 38.99% and a net margin of 37.92%. As a group, equities research analysts expect that Alphabet Inc. will post 14.3 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Alphabet Increases Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, June 15th. Shareholders of record on Monday, June 8th will be paid a dividend of $0.22 per share. This represents a $0.88 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.2%. This is an increase from Alphabet's previous quarterly dividend of $0.21. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Monday, June 8th. Alphabet's dividend payout ratio is presently 6.71%.

Insider Activity at Alphabet

In other Alphabet news, insider John Kent Walker sold 8,993 shares of the business's stock in a transaction on Friday, March 27th. The stock was sold at an average price of $275.89, for a total transaction of $2,481,078.77. Following the transaction, the insider owned 51,808 shares of the company's stock, valued at approximately $14,293,309.12. The trade was a 14.79% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is accessible through the SEC website. Also, Director John L. Hennessy sold 1,050 shares of the business's stock in a transaction on Friday, May 15th. The stock was sold at an average price of $393.26, for a total value of $412,923.00. Following the transaction, the director directly owned 2,531 shares in the company, valued at $995,341.06. This trade represents a 29.32% decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. Insiders have sold a total of 193,016 shares of company stock valued at $17,282,549 in the last three months. Company insiders own 11.61% of the company's stock.

Alphabet Profile

Alphabet Inc is the holding company created in 2015 to organize Google and a portfolio of businesses developing technologies beyond Google's core internet services. Its principal operations are led by Google, which builds and operates consumer-facing products such as Google Search, YouTube, Android, Chrome, Gmail, Google Maps and Google Workspace, as well as advertising platforms (Google Ads and AdSense) that historically generate the majority of its revenue. Google also develops consumer hardware (Pixel phones, Nest smart-home devices, Chromecast) and developer and distribution platforms such as Google Play.

Beyond Google's consumer and advertising businesses, Alphabet invests in enterprise and infrastructure offerings through Google Cloud, which provides cloud computing, data analytics and productivity services to businesses and institutions.

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