Navellier & Associates Inc. Takes Position in VNET Group, Inc. - Unsponsored ADR (NASDAQ:VNET)

Key Points

• Navellier & Associates Inc. has acquired a new stake in VNET Group, Inc., purchasing 95,406 shares valued at approximately $782,000 during the first quarter.
• Barclays PLC increased its holdings in VNET Group by 229.3%, indicating growing institutional interest, with hedge funds now owning 72.83% of the stock.
• VNET Group has recently experienced a downgrade in its earnings estimate, with projections of -0.06 EPS for the current year following poor Q1 results that missed consensus estimates significantly.

Navellier & Associates Inc. acquired a new stake in VNET Group, Inc. - Unsponsored ADR (NASDAQ:VNET - Free Report) in the first quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the SEC. The firm acquired 95,406 shares of the information technology services provider's stock, valued at approximately $782,000.

A number of other large investors have also added to or reduced their stakes in VNET. Triata Capital Ltd bought a new position in VNET Group during the 4th quarter worth approximately $47,377,000. Millennium Management LLC boosted its holdings in VNET Group by 3.4% during the 4th quarter. Millennium Management LLC now owns 5,578,371 shares of the information technology services provider's stock worth $26,441,000 after acquiring an additional 181,749 shares during the last quarter. MIRAE ASSET GLOBAL ETFS HOLDINGS Ltd. raised its stake in shares of VNET Group by 4.6% during the 4th quarter. MIRAE ASSET GLOBAL ETFS HOLDINGS Ltd. now owns 2,145,529 shares of the information technology services provider's stock worth $10,170,000 after purchasing an additional 93,891 shares during the period. D. E. Shaw & Co. Inc. bought a new stake in shares of VNET Group during the 4th quarter worth $7,183,000. Finally, Bank of America Corp DE raised its stake in VNET Group by 610.2% in the 4th quarter. Bank of America Corp DE now owns 1,198,750 shares of the information technology services provider's stock valued at $5,682,000 after acquiring an additional 1,029,963 shares during the period. Institutional investors own 72.83% of the company's stock.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Separately, Wall Street Zen upgraded VNET Group from a "sell" rating to a "hold" rating in a research note on Sunday, July 13th. One analyst has rated the stock with a hold rating, four have given a buy rating and two have issued a strong buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the stock presently has an average rating of "Buy" and an average target price of $9.30.

VNET Group Price Performance

NASDAQ:VNET traded down $0.07 during trading hours on Friday, reaching $8.26. The stock had a trading volume of 2,927,558 shares, compared to its average volume of 8,194,489. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 2.34, a quick ratio of 1.10 and a current ratio of 1.10. VNET Group, Inc. - Unsponsored ADR has a 52 week low of $1.71 and a 52 week high of $16.13. The company has a 50 day moving average price of $6.68 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $7.62. The stock has a market capitalization of $2.22 billion, a PE ratio of -826.00, a PEG ratio of 1.55 and a beta of 0.14.

VNET Group (NASDAQ:VNET - Get Free Report) last announced its earnings results on Wednesday, May 28th. The information technology services provider reported ($0.12) EPS for the quarter, missing analysts' consensus estimates of ($0.01) by ($0.11). The company had revenue of $309.52 million during the quarter, compared to analysts' expectations of $2.22 billion. VNET Group had a return on equity of 2.11% and a net margin of 1.66%. During the same quarter last year, the firm posted ($0.28) EPS. As a group, sell-side analysts anticipate that VNET Group, Inc. - Unsponsored ADR will post -0.06 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

VNET Group declared that its board has approved a stock buyback program on Friday, June 27th that authorizes the company to repurchase $0.00 in shares. This repurchase authorization authorizes the information technology services provider to repurchase shares of its stock through open market purchases. Shares repurchase programs are often an indication that the company's management believes its stock is undervalued.

About VNET Group

VNET Group, Inc, an investment holding company, provides hosting and related services in China. It offers managed hosting services consisting of managed retail services, such as colocation services that dedicate data center space to house customers' servers and networking equipment, as well as allow customers to lease partial or entire cabinets for their servers; interconnectivity services that allow customers to connect their servers; value-added services, including hybrid IT, bare metal, firewall, server load balancing, data backup and recovery, data center management, server management, and backup server services; cloud services that allow customers to run applications over the internet using IT infrastructure; and VPN Services that extend customers' private networks by setting up connections through the public internet.