Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD Has $44.59 Million Position in Smurfit Westrock PLC $SW

Key Points

• Price T Rowe Associates Inc. increased its stake in Smurfit Westrock PLC by 4.2%, acquiring a total of 989,425 shares valued at approximately $44.6 million.
• Smurfit Westrock reported earnings of $0.45 EPS, missing expectations, but showed a significant revenue increase of 167.4% year-over-year.
• The company's quarterly dividend payout is set at $0.4308 per share, with an annual yield of 3.8%, despite a high dividend payout ratio of 260.61%.

Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD lifted its holdings in shares of Smurfit Westrock PLC (NYSE:SW - Free Report) by 4.2% in the first quarter, according to its most recent filing with the SEC. The firm owned 989,425 shares of the company's stock after acquiring an additional 40,327 shares during the period. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD owned approximately 0.19% of Smurfit Westrock worth $44,585,000 as of its most recent filing with the SEC.

A number of other hedge funds have also made changes to their positions in the company. Incentive AS increased its position in shares of Smurfit Westrock by 1.2% during the 1st quarter. Incentive AS now owns 2,312,540 shares of the company's stock worth $104,203,000 after purchasing an additional 27,117 shares in the last quarter. Groupama Asset Managment increased its position in Smurfit Westrock by 28.8% in the 1st quarter. Groupama Asset Managment now owns 527,572 shares of the company's stock valued at $23,772,000 after acquiring an additional 117,877 shares in the last quarter. Fuller & Thaler Asset Management Inc. increased its position in Smurfit Westrock by 4.1% in the 1st quarter. Fuller & Thaler Asset Management Inc. now owns 198,806 shares of the company's stock valued at $8,958,000 after acquiring an additional 7,900 shares in the last quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP increased its position in Smurfit Westrock by 38.6% in the 1st quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP now owns 969,929 shares of the company's stock valued at $43,668,000 after acquiring an additional 269,893 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Raymond James Financial Inc. increased its position in Smurfit Westrock by 1.3% in the 1st quarter. Raymond James Financial Inc. now owns 215,716 shares of the company's stock valued at $9,720,000 after acquiring an additional 2,854 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 83.38% of the company's stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several equities research analysts have recently commented on the stock. Truist Financial lifted their price target 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. Morgan Stanley lifted their price target 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. Wells Fargo & Company lifted their price target 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. Jefferies Financial Group upgraded shares of Smurfit Westrock from a "hold" rating to a "buy" rating and lifted their price target for the stock from $44.00 to $55.00 in a research report on Monday, June 16th. Finally, Barclays lowered their price target 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. Eight analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and one has issued a Hold rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company has an average rating of "Moderate Buy" and an average target price of $57.78.

Smurfit Westrock Stock Up 2.1%

SW traded up $0.99 during trading on Friday, reaching $47.38. The company had a trading volume of 4,320,658 shares, compared to its average volume of 4,103,818. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.73, a current ratio of 1.45 and a quick ratio of 0.95. Smurfit Westrock PLC has a 12 month low of $37.01 and a 12 month high of $56.99. The business's fifty day moving average price is $45.36 and its 200 day moving average price is $44.93. The company has a market cap of $24.74 billion, a P/E ratio of 71.79 and a beta of 1.06.

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

Smurfit Westrock Announces Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, September 18th. Stockholders of record on Friday, August 15th will be issued a $0.4308 dividend. The ex-dividend date is Friday, August 15th. This represents a $1.72 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 3.6%. Smurfit Westrock's dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 260.61%.

Smurfit Westrock Profile

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.