William Blair Investment Management LLC Purchases New Position in F5, Inc. $FFIV

Key Points

• William Blair Investment Management opened a new position in F5 during the fourth quarter, buying 550,264 shares worth about $140.5 million. The stake represents roughly 0.97% of the company.
• Insider selling was notable, with CTO Kunal Anand and CEO Francois Locoh-Donou both selling shares in pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 transactions. Over the last quarter, insiders sold 24,491 shares worth about $7.97 million.
• F5 reported better-than-expected quarterly results, including EPS of $3.90 on revenue of $811.7 million, and raised guidance for both Q3 2026 and FY 2026. Analysts currently have an average Hold rating with a target price of $353, while the stock recently traded near its 52-week high.

William Blair Investment Management LLC purchased a new stake in F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV - Free Report) during the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund purchased 550,264 shares of the network technology company's stock, valued at approximately $140,460,000. William Blair Investment Management LLC owned approximately 0.97% of F5 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Other institutional investors have also bought and sold shares of the company. Elyxium Wealth LLC acquired a new stake in F5 in the 4th quarter valued at $28,000. Abich Financial Wealth Management LLC acquired a new stake in F5 in the 3rd quarter valued at $37,000. Torren Management LLC acquired a new stake in F5 in the 4th quarter valued at $43,000. Geneos Wealth Management Inc. boosted its stake in F5 by 288.1% in the 1st quarter. Geneos Wealth Management Inc. now owns 163 shares of the network technology company's stock valued at $43,000 after buying an additional 121 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Root Financial Partners LLC acquired a new stake in F5 in the 3rd quarter valued at $49,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 90.66% of the company's stock.

Insider Activity at F5

In other news, CTO Kunal Anand sold 3,123 shares of the company's stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, May 4th. The stock was sold at an average price of $322.33, for a total transaction of $1,006,636.59. Following the sale, the chief technology officer owned 12,194 shares in the company, valued at $3,930,492.02. This represents a 20.39% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at this link. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, CEO Francois Locoh-Donou sold 3,783 shares of the company's stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, May 5th. The stock was sold at an average price of $337.39, for a total value of $1,276,346.37. Following the sale, the chief executive officer owned 146,989 shares in the company, valued at approximately $49,592,618.71. This represents a 2.51% decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Over the last quarter, insiders have sold 24,491 shares of company stock worth $7,966,227. Insiders own 0.48% of the company's stock.

F5 Stock Performance

NASDAQ FFIV opened at $393.63 on Friday. The stock has a market capitalization of $22.21 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 32.29, a PEG ratio of 9.05 and a beta of 1.00. The stock's 50 day moving average price is $316.75 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $280.86. F5, Inc. has a 52 week low of $223.76 and a 52 week high of $395.77.

F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV - Get Free Report) last released its earnings results on Tuesday, April 28th. The network technology company reported $3.90 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $3.47 by $0.43. F5 had a return on equity of 21.50% and a net margin of 21.96%.The firm had revenue of $811.70 million for the quarter, compared to analysts' expectations of $783.82 million. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business posted $3.42 EPS. The business's quarterly revenue was up 11.0% compared to the same quarter last year. F5 has set its Q3 2026 guidance at 3.910-4.030 EPS and its FY 2026 guidance at 16.250-16.550 EPS. On average, equities research analysts forecast that F5, Inc. will post 12.79 EPS for the current year.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several equities analysts have issued reports on the company. The Goldman Sachs Group lifted their price objective on F5 from $285.00 to $320.00 and gave the company a "neutral" rating in a research report on Wednesday, January 28th. Morgan Stanley lifted their price objective on F5 from $340.00 to $380.00 and gave the company an "equal weight" rating in a research report on Wednesday. Evercore upgraded F5 from an "in-line" rating to an "outperform" rating and set a $475.00 price objective for the company in a research report on Monday, May 18th. Barclays lifted their price objective on F5 from $283.00 to $292.00 and gave the company an "equal weight" rating in a research report on Wednesday, April 29th. Finally, Piper Sandler reiterated an "overweight" rating on shares of F5 in a research report on Wednesday, April 29th. Six research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, five have assigned a Hold rating and one has assigned a Sell rating to the company's stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has an average rating of "Hold" and an average target price of $353.00.

F5 Company Profile

F5 Inc NASDAQ: FFIV specializes in application services and delivery networking, helping organizations ensure the availability, performance and security of their applications. The company's core offerings include advanced load balancing, traffic management and application security solutions designed to optimize user experiences and protect against threats such as distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks and web application exploits.

At the heart of F5's product portfolio is the BIG-IP platform, which provides a suite of software modules for local and global traffic management, secure web application firewalling and DNS service delivery.

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