Vest Financial LLC Lowers Holdings in T. Rowe Price Group, Inc. $TROW

Key Points

• Vest Financial LLC lowered its stake in T. Rowe Price by 2.3% in Q4 to 498,038 shares (about $50.99M); institutional investors now own roughly 73.39% of the company.
• T. Rowe Price reported Q4 EPS of $2.44 (missing estimates by $0.03) while revenue rose 6% to $1.93B and the firm raised its quarterly dividend to $1.30 (annualized $5.20, ~5.1% yield).
• Analyst sentiment is tilted bearish — MarketBeat shows a consensus rating of "Reduce" with an average price target of $96.46 and several recent downgrades/target cuts.

Vest Financial LLC lowered its stake in shares of T. Rowe Price Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:TROW - Free Report) by 2.3% in the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The firm owned 498,038 shares of the asset manager's stock after selling 11,746 shares during the period. Vest Financial LLC owned 0.23% of T. Rowe Price Group worth $50,989,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission.

Other hedge funds also recently bought and sold shares of the company. Fidelis Capital Partners LLC acquired a new position in shares of T. Rowe Price Group during the third quarter worth $540,000. Greenspring Advisors LLC acquired a new position in shares of T. Rowe Price Group during the third quarter worth $1,583,000. First Citizens Bank & Trust Co. increased its position in shares of T. Rowe Price Group by 141.9% during the third quarter. First Citizens Bank & Trust Co. now owns 175,885 shares of the asset manager's stock worth $18,053,000 after purchasing an additional 103,174 shares in the last quarter. Robeco Institutional Asset Management B.V. increased its position in shares of T. Rowe Price Group by 17.4% during the fourth quarter. Robeco Institutional Asset Management B.V. now owns 79,003 shares of the asset manager's stock worth $8,088,000 after purchasing an additional 11,691 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Assenagon Asset Management S.A. increased its position in shares of T. Rowe Price Group by 43.9% during the fourth quarter. Assenagon Asset Management S.A. now owns 312,768 shares of the asset manager's stock worth $32,021,000 after purchasing an additional 95,351 shares in the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 73.39% of the company's stock.

T. Rowe Price Group Price Performance

Shares of TROW stock opened at $101.36 on Tuesday. The business has a fifty day moving average of $92.45 and a 200 day moving average of $99.25. The firm has a market capitalization of $22.06 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 10.96, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 4.29 and a beta of 1.50. T. Rowe Price Group, Inc. has a 1 year low of $85.22 and a 1 year high of $118.22.

T. Rowe Price Group (NASDAQ:TROW - Get Free Report) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, February 4th. The asset manager reported $2.44 earnings per share for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $2.47 by ($0.03). The company had revenue of $1.93 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.92 billion. T. Rowe Price Group had a return on equity of 20.29% and a net margin of 28.53%.T. Rowe Price Group's revenue for the quarter was up 6.0% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the prior year, the business posted $2.12 earnings per share. As a group, equities research analysts expect that T. Rowe Price Group, Inc. will post 9.69 earnings per share for the current year.

T. Rowe Price Group Increases Dividend

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, March 30th. Shareholders of record on Monday, March 16th were given a dividend of $1.30 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Monday, March 16th. This represents a $5.20 annualized dividend and a yield of 5.1%. This is an increase from T. Rowe Price Group's previous quarterly dividend of $1.27. T. Rowe Price Group's payout ratio is 56.22%.

Analyst Ratings Changes

TROW has been the topic of a number of recent analyst reports. Jefferies Financial Group reduced their price target on T. Rowe Price Group from $107.00 to $91.00 and set a "hold" rating on the stock in a research report on Wednesday, April 8th. Weiss Ratings reissued a "hold (c+)" rating on shares of T. Rowe Price Group in a research report on Monday, December 29th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. reduced their target price on T. Rowe Price Group from $106.00 to $103.00 and set an "underweight" rating for the company in a research note on Friday. The Goldman Sachs Group raised their target price on T. Rowe Price Group from $80.00 to $85.00 and gave the stock a "sell" rating in a research note on Tuesday, April 14th. Finally, Zacks Research lowered T. Rowe Price Group from a "hold" rating to a "strong sell" rating in a research note on Tuesday, April 14th. Ten research analysts have rated the stock with a Hold rating and five have assigned a Sell rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, T. Rowe Price Group currently has a consensus rating of "Reduce" and an average price target of $96.46.

About T. Rowe Price Group

T. Rowe Price Group, Inc is a global investment management firm headquartered in Baltimore, Maryland, founded by Thomas Rowe Price Jr. in 1937. The company provides a broad range of investment products and services for individual investors, financial intermediaries, retirement plan sponsors and institutional clients. Its offerings are built around active investment management and in-house research across equity, fixed income and multi-asset strategies, reflecting a long history as a research-driven asset manager.

The firm's product lineup includes mutual funds, separate accounts, collective investment trusts, target-date and target-risk funds, and managed account solutions, as well as services for defined contribution and defined benefit retirement plans.

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