Brandywine Global Investment Management LLC Acquires New Holdings in F5, Inc. $FFIV

Key Points

• Brandywine Global Investment Management disclosed a new fourth-quarter stake in F5, buying 13,002 shares worth about $3.3 million. Several other institutional investors also added to or opened positions, and institutions now own 90.66% of the stock.
• Wall Street sentiment on F5 is mixed but generally constructive: multiple firms raised price targets, and the stock has a consensus rating of “Hold” with an average target price of $382.67.
• F5 reported strong quarterly results, including EPS of $3.90 versus the $3.47 estimate and revenue of $811.7 million, up 11% year over year. The company also guided Q3 2026 EPS at $3.91-$4.03 and FY 2026 EPS at $16.25-$16.55.

Brandywine Global Investment Management LLC acquired a new stake in shares of F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV - Free Report) during the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The firm acquired 13,002 shares of the network technology company's stock, valued at approximately $3,319,000.

A number of other institutional investors also recently added to or reduced their stakes in FFIV. Hazlett Burt & Watson Inc. bought a new stake in F5 during the fourth quarter valued at about $26,000. Hantz Financial Services Inc. boosted its position in F5 by 109.8% during the fourth quarter. Hantz Financial Services Inc. now owns 107 shares of the network technology company's stock valued at $27,000 after purchasing an additional 56 shares in the last quarter. Elyxium Wealth LLC bought a new stake in F5 during the fourth quarter valued at about $28,000. Abich Financial Wealth Management LLC purchased a new position in F5 during the 3rd quarter worth $37,000. Finally, Torren Management LLC purchased a new position in F5 during the 4th quarter worth $43,000. Institutional investors own 90.66% of the company's stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several brokerages recently issued reports on FFIV. Weiss Ratings raised F5 from a "hold (c+)" rating to a "buy (b-)" rating in a research report on Monday, March 30th. Royal Bank Of Canada upped their target price on F5 from $425.00 to $450.00 and gave the company an "outperform" rating in a research report on Tuesday. Piper Sandler upped their target price on F5 from $356.00 to $423.00 and gave the company an "overweight" rating in a research report on Friday, May 29th. Bank of America upped their target price on F5 from $250.00 to $300.00 and gave the company an "underperform" rating in a research report on Tuesday, May 26th. Finally, Morgan Stanley upped their target price on F5 from $340.00 to $380.00 and gave the company an "equal weight" rating in a research report on Wednesday, May 20th. Six investment analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, five have assigned a Hold rating and one has assigned a Sell rating to the company's stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock has an average rating of "Hold" and a consensus target price of $382.67.

F5 Stock Performance

F5 stock opened at $390.77 on Thursday. The business's 50-day simple moving average is $344.96 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $295.60. The company has a market cap of $22.05 billion, a PE ratio of 32.06, a PEG ratio of 4.64 and a beta of 1.04. F5, Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $223.76 and a fifty-two week high of $411.52.

F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV - Get Free Report) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, April 28th. The network technology company reported $3.90 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $3.47 by $0.43. The business had revenue of $811.70 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $783.82 million. F5 had a return on equity of 21.50% and a net margin of 21.96%.The company's quarterly revenue was up 11.0% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business earned $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. As a group, analysts predict that F5, Inc. will post 12.78 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Insider Buying and Selling at F5

In other F5 news, EVP Chad Michael Whalen sold 6,200 shares of the business's stock in a transaction dated Friday, May 8th. The stock was sold at an average price of $350.19, for a total transaction of $2,171,178.00. Following the sale, the executive vice president owned 20,832 shares in the company, valued at approximately $7,295,158.08. The trade was a 22.94% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed 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 business'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 completion of the transaction, the executive vice president directly owned 8,060 shares of the company's stock, valued at approximately $2,664,474.80. This trade represents a 14.15% decrease in their position. 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 21,579 shares of company stock worth $7,437,510. 0.48% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

F5 Profile

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.

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