Cooke & Bieler LP Takes $36.83 Million Position in H. B. Fuller Company (NYSE:FUL)

Cooke & Bieler LP bought a new stake in H. B. Fuller Company (NYSE:FUL - Free Report) in the first quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the SEC. The institutional investor bought 656,270 shares of the specialty chemicals company's stock, valued at approximately $36,830,000. Cooke & Bieler LP owned 1.21% of H. B. Fuller as of its most recent SEC filing.

Other hedge funds also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Kennedy Capital Management LLC increased its position in H. B. Fuller by 13.4% during the fourth quarter. Kennedy Capital Management LLC now owns 127,896 shares of the specialty chemicals company's stock worth $8,630,000 after buying an additional 15,100 shares in the last quarter. KLP Kapitalforvaltning AS purchased a new position in H. B. Fuller in the fourth quarter valued at about $783,000. New Age Alpha Advisors LLC purchased a new position in H. B. Fuller in the fourth quarter valued at about $465,000. Quantbot Technologies LP purchased a new position in H. B. Fuller in the fourth quarter valued at about $266,000. Finally, MetLife Investment Management LLC raised its stake in H. B. Fuller by 4.7% during the fourth quarter. MetLife Investment Management LLC now owns 33,058 shares of the specialty chemicals company's stock valued at $2,231,000 after buying an additional 1,472 shares in the last quarter. 95.93% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other news, VP Robert J. Martsching sold 9,546 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Thursday, July 10th. The shares were sold at an average price of $64.30, for a total transaction of $613,807.80. Following the completion of the transaction, the vice president directly owned 14,980 shares in the company, valued at $963,214. This represents a 38.92% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. Corporate insiders own 1.99% of the company's stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

FUL has been the topic of several research reports. JPMorgan Chase & Co. upped their price objective on H. B. Fuller from $50.00 to $54.00 and gave the company an "underweight" rating in a research note on Friday, June 27th. Robert W. Baird lifted their target price on H. B. Fuller from $60.00 to $75.00 and gave the company an "outperform" rating in a research note on Friday, June 27th. Finally, Baird R W raised H. B. Fuller from a "hold" rating to a "strong-buy" rating in a research note on Thursday, April 17th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, four have issued a hold rating, two have assigned a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company has an average rating of "Hold" and a consensus price target of $67.25.

H. B. Fuller Stock Performance

Shares of NYSE:FUL traded down $1.08 during midday trading on Friday, hitting $60.11. The company's stock had a trading volume of 435,999 shares, compared to its average volume of 397,484. The stock has a market capitalization of $3.24 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 32.49, a PEG ratio of 0.99 and a beta of 1.12. The stock's 50 day simple moving average is $57.80 and its 200 day simple moving average is $57.45. H. B. Fuller Company has a fifty-two week low of $47.56 and a fifty-two week high of $87.67. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.13, a quick ratio of 1.15 and a current ratio of 1.87.

H. B. Fuller (NYSE:FUL - Get Free Report) last released its earnings results on Wednesday, June 25th. The specialty chemicals company reported $1.18 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts' consensus estimates of $1.10 by $0.08. H. B. Fuller had a return on equity of 11.50% and a net margin of 2.92%. The business had revenue of $898.10 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $894.87 million. During the same period last year, the business earned $1.12 earnings per share. The firm's revenue for the quarter was down 2.1% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, research analysts anticipate that H. B. Fuller Company will post 4.07 earnings per share for the current year.

H. B. Fuller Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, August 14th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, July 31st will be issued a dividend of $0.235 per share. This represents a $0.94 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.56%. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, July 31st. H. B. Fuller's dividend payout ratio is presently 50.81%.

H. B. Fuller Profile

H.B. Fuller Company, together with its subsidiaries, formulates, manufactures, and markets adhesives, sealants, coatings, polymers, tapes, encapsulants, additives, and other specialty chemical products. It operates through three segments: Hygiene, Health and Consumable Adhesives; Engineering Adhesives; and Construction Adhesives.