Boston Partners Sells 672,328 Shares of NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP)

Key Points

• Boston Partners reduced its holdings in NetApp, Inc. by 32.3% during the first quarter, now owning about 0.69% of the company valued at $123.9 million.
• Multiple hedge funds increased their positions in NetApp, with Vanguard Group Inc. raising its stake by 2.3%, now holding shares worth $2.38 billion.
• NetApp recently announced a quarterly dividend of $0.52 per share, representing an annualized yield of 1.9%, with a payout ratio of 36.62%.

Boston Partners reduced its stake in NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP - Free Report) by 32.3% in the 1st quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 1,410,861 shares of the data storage provider's stock after selling 672,328 shares during the period. Boston Partners owned approximately 0.69% of NetApp worth $123,906,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Several other large investors have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in NTAP. Manchester Capital Management LLC grew its stake in shares of NetApp by 375.0% during the first quarter. Manchester Capital Management LLC now owns 285 shares of the data storage provider's stock valued at $25,000 after acquiring an additional 225 shares in the last quarter. Olde Wealth Management LLC acquired a new position in shares of NetApp during the first quarter valued at approximately $29,000. Migdal Insurance & Financial Holdings Ltd. increased its stake in shares of NetApp by 54.9% during the first quarter. Migdal Insurance & Financial Holdings Ltd. now owns 350 shares of the data storage provider's stock valued at $31,000 after acquiring an additional 124 shares during the period. Itau Unibanco Holding S.A. increased its stake in shares of NetApp by 929.6% during the fourth quarter. Itau Unibanco Holding S.A. now owns 278 shares of the data storage provider's stock valued at $32,000 after acquiring an additional 251 shares during the period. Finally, Coppell Advisory Solutions LLC grew its position in NetApp by 50.0% in the fourth quarter. Coppell Advisory Solutions LLC now owns 300 shares of the data storage provider's stock worth $35,000 after buying an additional 100 shares during the last quarter. 92.17% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Insider Buying and Selling at NetApp

In other NetApp news, CEO George Kurian sold 8,500 shares of the business's stock in a transaction dated Monday, June 16th. The shares were sold at an average price of $101.78, for a total value of $865,130.00. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer directly owned 296,805 shares in the company, valued at $30,208,812.90. The trade was a 2.78% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, EVP Elizabeth M. O'callahan sold 1,000 shares of the company's stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, August 11th. The stock was sold at an average price of $105.90, for a total transaction of $105,900.00. Following the transaction, the executive vice president owned 23,251 shares in the company, valued at $2,462,280.90. The trade was a 4.12% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 19,302 shares of company stock worth $2,026,379 over the last ninety days. Corporate insiders own 0.28% of the company's stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of equities analysts recently commented on the stock. UBS Group decreased their price objective on shares of NetApp from $115.00 to $108.00 and set a "neutral" rating for the company in a research note on Friday, May 30th. Morgan Stanley restated a "cautious" rating on shares of NetApp in a report on Tuesday, May 20th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. increased their target price on NetApp from $115.00 to $130.00 and gave the company an "overweight" rating in a report on Thursday, July 17th. Evercore ISI reduced their target price on NetApp from $120.00 to $100.00 and set an "in-line" rating for the company in a report on Monday, April 28th. Finally, Citigroup increased their target price on NetApp from $110.00 to $115.00 and gave the company a "neutral" rating in a report on Monday, August 11th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, ten have issued a hold rating and six have issued a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has a consensus rating of "Hold" and an average target price of $119.21.

NetApp Stock Performance

NTAP traded down $0.77 during trading on Friday, hitting $108.79. The stock had a trading volume of 2,066,158 shares, compared to its average volume of 1,473,976. The firm has a market cap of $21.80 billion, a PE ratio of 19.15, a P/E/G ratio of 2.50 and a beta of 1.44. NetApp, Inc. has a 12 month low of $71.84 and a 12 month high of $135.45. The company has a current ratio of 1.25, a quick ratio of 1.22 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 2.39. The company has a 50 day simple moving average of $105.17 and a 200-day simple moving average of $100.83.

NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP - Get Free Report) last posted its earnings results on Thursday, May 29th. The data storage provider reported $1.93 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts' consensus estimates of $1.90 by $0.03. The business had revenue of $1.73 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts' expectations of $1.72 billion. NetApp had a net margin of 18.05% and a return on equity of 126.96%. The firm's revenue for the quarter was up 3.8% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm posted $1.80 earnings per share. Analysts expect that NetApp, Inc. will post 5.89 EPS for the current year.

NetApp Dividend Announcement

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, July 23rd. Shareholders of record on Thursday, July 3rd were given a $0.52 dividend. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, July 3rd. This represents a $2.08 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.9%. NetApp's payout ratio is 36.62%.

NetApp Profile

NetApp, Inc provides cloud-led and data-centric services to manage and share data on-premises, and private and public clouds worldwide. It operates in two segments, Hybrid Cloud and Public Could. The company offers intelligent data management software, such as NetApp ONTAP, NetApp Snapshot, NetApp SnapCenter Backup Management, NetApp SnapMirror Data Replication, NetApp SnapLock Data Compliance, and storage infrastructure solutions, including NetApp All-Flash FAS series, NetApp Fabric Attached Storage, NetApp E/EF series, and NetApp StorageGRID.