Royce & Associates LP Reduces Stock Position in Bread Financial Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:BFH)

Key Points

• Royce & Associates LP reduced its holdings in Bread Financial Holdings, Inc. by 57.7%, selling 88,831 shares during the first quarter, leaving them with 65,209 shares valued at approximately $3.27 million.
• Analyst ratings for Bread Financial include a mix, with some brokers giving a buy or strong-buy rating, and an average target price of $64.42 based on several brokerage assessments.
• Bread Financial recently announced a quarterly dividend of $0.21 per share, representing a 1.33% dividend yield, to be paid on September 12th to stockholders of record as of August 8th.

Royce & Associates LP lessened its stake in shares of Bread Financial Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:BFH - Free Report) by 57.7% in the first quarter, according to its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 65,209 shares of the company's stock after selling 88,831 shares during the quarter. Royce & Associates LP owned about 0.14% of Bread Financial worth $3,266,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

A number of other hedge funds have also added to or reduced their stakes in BFH. Brooktree Capital Management grew its stake in Bread Financial by 0.4% during the first quarter. Brooktree Capital Management now owns 153,893 shares of the company's stock valued at $7,707,000 after acquiring an additional 649 shares in the last quarter. KLP Kapitalforvaltning AS grew its position in shares of Bread Financial by 51.0% during the 1st quarter. KLP Kapitalforvaltning AS now owns 15,100 shares of the company's stock valued at $756,000 after purchasing an additional 5,100 shares in the last quarter. Universal Beteiligungs und Servicegesellschaft mbH purchased a new position in shares of Bread Financial during the 1st quarter valued at $1,740,000. Allianz Asset Management GmbH grew its position in shares of Bread Financial by 2.9% during the 1st quarter. Allianz Asset Management GmbH now owns 488,316 shares of the company's stock valued at $24,455,000 after purchasing an additional 13,656 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Pzena Investment Management LLC grew its position in Bread Financial by 0.8% during the first quarter. Pzena Investment Management LLC now owns 728,204 shares of the company's stock worth $36,468,000 after buying an additional 6,065 shares in the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 99.52% of the company's stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several equities analysts recently commented on the company. Morgan Stanley boosted their target price on Bread Financial from $36.00 to $39.00 and gave the stock an "underweight" rating in a research report on Monday, May 12th. Royal Bank Of Canada boosted their price objective on Bread Financial from $65.00 to $74.00 and gave the stock a "sector perform" rating in a report on Friday, July 25th. BTIG Research set a $105.00 price target on shares of Bread Financial and gave the stock a "buy" rating in a research note on Monday, July 14th. Barclays reissued an "underweight" rating and issued a $52.00 price target (up previously from $45.00) on shares of Bread Financial in a research note on Tuesday, July 8th. Finally, JMP Securities reissued a "market perform" rating on shares of Bread Financial in a research note on Monday, April 28th. Three equities research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, six have issued a hold rating, four have issued a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company's stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Bread Financial has an average rating of "Hold" and an average target price of $64.42.

Bread Financial Trading Down 0.1%

NYSE BFH traded down $0.06 during trading on Thursday, hitting $61.73. 95,689 shares of the company's stock traded hands, compared to its average volume of 854,634. The stock has a fifty day moving average of $56.57 and a two-hundred day moving average of $54.41. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.36, a current ratio of 1.18 and a quick ratio of 1.17. Bread Financial Holdings, Inc. has a 12-month low of $38.21 and a 12-month high of $66.71. The firm has a market cap of $2.87 billion, a P/E ratio of 10.43, a PEG ratio of 1.07 and a beta of 1.38.

Bread Financial (NYSE:BFH - Get Free Report) last issued its earnings results on Thursday, July 24th. The company reported $3.14 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.85 by $1.29. The company had revenue of $929.00 million during the quarter, compared to analysts' expectations of $944.69 million. Bread Financial had a return on equity of 13.10% and a net margin of 6.05%. Bread Financial's quarterly revenue was down 1.1% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the prior year, the business posted $2.66 EPS. As a group, sell-side analysts expect that Bread Financial Holdings, Inc. will post 6.45 EPS for the current year.

Bread Financial Dividend Announcement

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, September 12th. Shareholders of record on Friday, August 8th will be given a dividend of $0.21 per share. The ex-dividend date is Friday, August 8th. This represents a $0.84 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.36%. Bread Financial's payout ratio is currently 14.21%.

About Bread Financial

Bread Financial Holdings, Inc provides tech-forward payment and lending solutions to customers and consumer-based industries in North America. It offers credit card and other loans financing services, including risk management solutions, account origination, and funding services for private label and co-brand credit card programs, as well as through Bread partnerships; and Comenity-branded general purpose cash-back credit.