F5, Inc. $FFIV Stake Increased by Handelsbanken Fonder AB

Key Points

• Handelsbanken Fonder AB increased its F5 stake by 17.5% in the fourth quarter, bringing its holdings to 17,160 shares valued at about $4.38 million.
• Several other institutional investors also boosted or initiated positions, and institutions now own 90.66% of F5’s shares, signaling continued strong institutional interest.
• F5 reported better-than-expected quarterly results with EPS of $3.90 on revenue of $811.7 million, while analysts have a consensus rating of Hold and a target price of $353.

Handelsbanken Fonder AB increased its stake in F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV - Free Report) by 17.5% in the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund owned 17,160 shares of the network technology company's stock after buying an additional 2,560 shares during the period. Handelsbanken Fonder AB's holdings in F5 were worth $4,380,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also made changes to their positions in the stock. ProShare Advisors LLC increased its stake in shares of F5 by 12.4% in the fourth quarter. ProShare Advisors LLC now owns 18,835 shares of the network technology company's stock worth $4,808,000 after buying an additional 2,083 shares during the last quarter. North Dakota State Investment Board bought a new stake in shares of F5 in the fourth quarter worth $506,000. Elyxium Wealth LLC bought a new stake in shares of F5 in the fourth quarter worth $28,000. Northwestern Mutual Wealth Management Co. increased its stake in shares of F5 by 15,103.5% in the fourth quarter. Northwestern Mutual Wealth Management Co. now owns 1,170,216 shares of the network technology company's stock worth $298,709,000 after buying an additional 1,162,519 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Arbejdsmarkedets Tillaegspension bought a new stake in shares of F5 in the fourth quarter worth $23,014,000. Institutional investors own 90.66% of the company's stock.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

FFIV has been the subject of a number of research analyst reports. The Goldman Sachs Group lifted their price target on shares of F5 from $285.00 to $320.00 and gave the stock a "neutral" rating in a research note on Wednesday, January 28th. Evercore upgraded shares of F5 from an "in-line" rating to an "outperform" rating and set a $475.00 target price for the company in a research note on Monday. Morgan Stanley boosted their target price on shares of F5 from $340.00 to $380.00 and gave the company an "equal weight" rating in a research note on Wednesday. Royal Bank Of Canada boosted their target price on shares of F5 from $375.00 to $425.00 and gave the company an "outperform" rating in a research note on Tuesday. Finally, Barclays boosted their target price on shares of F5 from $283.00 to $292.00 and gave the company an "equal weight" rating in a research note on Wednesday, April 29th. Six analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, five have issued a Hold rating and one has assigned a Sell rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the company presently has an average rating of "Hold" and a consensus target price of $353.00.

Insider Buying and Selling at F5

In other news, CEO Francois Locoh-Donou sold 3,783 shares of the company's stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, May 5th. The shares were sold at an average price of $337.39, for a total transaction of $1,276,346.37. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer owned 146,989 shares in the company, valued at approximately $49,592,618.71. This 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 accessible through the SEC website. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, CTO Kunal Anand sold 3,123 shares of the company's stock in a transaction dated Monday, May 4th. The stock was sold at an average price of $322.33, for a total transaction of $1,006,636.59. Following the transaction, the chief technology officer owned 12,194 shares of the company's stock, valued at $3,930,492.02. This represents a 20.39% decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. In the last ninety days, insiders have sold 24,491 shares of company stock valued at $7,966,227. Corporate insiders own 0.48% of the company's stock.

F5 Stock Performance

F5 stock opened at $393.63 on Friday. The company has a 50-day simple moving average of $316.75 and a 200-day simple moving average of $280.86. The firm has a market capitalization of $22.21 billion, a P/E ratio of 32.29, a P/E/G 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 $395.77.

F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV - Get Free Report) last released its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, April 28th. The network technology company reported $3.90 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $3.47 by $0.43. The business 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 company's quarterly revenue was up 11.0% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm earned $3.42 earnings per share. 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, sell-side analysts forecast that F5, Inc. will post 12.79 earnings per share for the current year.

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.

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