Northern Trust Corp Reduces Stock Position in Smurfit Westrock PLC $SW

Key Points

• Northern Trust Corp reduced its stake in Smurfit Westrock PLC by 5.5%, selling over 249,000 shares, and now holds approximately 0.82% of the company valued at $193 million.
• Institutional investors, including Vanguard and Nuveen, have increased their stakes, with Vanguard now owning 79 million shares valued at $3.56 billion.
• Smurfit Westrock announced a quarterly dividend of $0.4308 per share, representing an annualized yield of 3.9%.

Northern Trust Corp lowered its position in shares of Smurfit Westrock PLC (NYSE:SW - Free Report) by 5.5% in the 1st quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The firm owned 4,285,833 shares of the company's stock after selling 249,514 shares during the period. Northern Trust Corp owned about 0.82% of Smurfit Westrock worth $193,120,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Several other institutional investors have also added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Vanguard Group Inc. boosted its position in Smurfit Westrock by 0.4% during the 1st quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 79,187,333 shares of the company's stock valued at $3,564,678,000 after buying an additional 316,074 shares during the period. Nuveen LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Smurfit Westrock in the 1st quarter worth about $1,051,299,000. Nuveen Asset Management LLC lifted its position in shares of Smurfit Westrock by 51.6% in the 4th quarter. Nuveen Asset Management LLC now owns 20,720,312 shares of the company's stock worth $1,115,996,000 after purchasing an additional 7,050,781 shares during the period. Invesco Ltd. lifted its position in shares of Smurfit Westrock by 4.0% in the 1st quarter. Invesco Ltd. now owns 10,244,072 shares of the company's stock worth $461,598,000 after purchasing an additional 395,015 shares during the period. Finally, Ameriprise Financial Inc. lifted its position in shares of Smurfit Westrock by 1.7% in the 4th quarter. Ameriprise Financial Inc. now owns 9,003,480 shares of the company's stock worth $484,927,000 after purchasing an additional 149,210 shares during the period. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 83.38% of the company's stock.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several research firms have recently commented on SW. Truist Financial raised their target price on shares of Smurfit Westrock from $50.00 to $54.00 and gave the stock a "buy" rating in a research report on Friday, July 11th. Wells Fargo & Company raised their target price on shares of Smurfit Westrock from $45.00 to $46.00 and gave the stock an "equal weight" rating in a research report on Thursday, July 31st. Royal Bank Of Canada dropped their target price on shares of Smurfit Westrock from $57.00 to $56.00 and set an "outperform" rating for the company in a research report on Friday, May 2nd. Morgan Stanley raised their target price on shares of Smurfit Westrock from $51.00 to $53.00 and gave the stock an "overweight" rating in a research report on Tuesday, July 8th. Finally, Barclays dropped their target price on shares of Smurfit Westrock from $64.00 to $63.00 and set an "overweight" rating for the company in a research report on Monday, June 30th. Nine research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and one has assigned a Hold rating to the company's stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has an average rating of "Moderate Buy" and a consensus target price of $58.00.

Smurfit Westrock Stock Up 4.1%

Shares of Smurfit Westrock stock opened at $43.6520 on Friday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.73, a current ratio of 1.45 and a quick ratio of 0.95. The company has a 50-day moving average of $44.92 and a 200 day moving average of $45.29. The firm has a market cap of $22.79 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 66.14 and a beta of 1.06. Smurfit Westrock PLC has a 1 year low of $37.01 and a 1 year high of $56.99.

Smurfit Westrock (NYSE:SW - Get Free Report) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, July 30th. The company reported $0.45 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $0.57 by ($0.12). The business had revenue of $7.94 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $7.88 billion. Smurfit Westrock had a return on equity of 5.90% and a net margin of 1.14%.The company's revenue for the quarter was up 167.4% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, sell-side analysts anticipate that Smurfit Westrock PLC will post 3.25 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Smurfit Westrock Announces Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, September 18th. Shareholders of record on Friday, August 15th will be paid a dividend of $0.4308 per share. This represents a $1.72 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 3.9%. Smurfit Westrock's dividend payout ratio is currently 260.61%.

About Smurfit Westrock

Smurfit Westrock Plc, together with its subsidiaries, manufactures, distributes, and sells containerboard, corrugated containers, and other paper-based packaging products in Ireland and internationally. The company produces containerboard that it converts into corrugated containers or sells to third parties, as well as produces other types of paper, such as consumer packaging board, sack paper, graphic paper, solid board and graphic board, and other paper-based packaging products, such as consumer packaging, solid board packaging, paper sacks, and other packaging products, including bag-in-box.

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