VNET Group (NASDAQ:VNET) Rating Lowered to Sell at Wall Street Zen

VNET Group (NASDAQ:VNET - Get Free Report) was downgraded by stock analysts at Wall Street Zen from a "hold" rating to a "sell" rating in a research note issued on Saturday.

Separately, Citigroup increased their price objective on shares of VNET Group from $16.10 to $20.00 and gave the company a "buy" rating in a research report on Friday, March 14th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, four have issued a buy rating and two have assigned a strong buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company presently has an average rating of "Buy" and a consensus target price of $9.30.

VNET Group Stock Up 9.5%

VNET opened at $7.75 on Friday. VNET Group has a fifty-two week low of $1.71 and a fifty-two week high of $16.13. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 2.34, a quick ratio of 1.10 and a current ratio of 1.10. The company has a fifty day moving average of $6.13 and a two-hundred day moving average of $7.22. The stock has a market capitalization of $2.08 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of -775.00, a PEG ratio of 1.46 and a beta of 0.14.

VNET Group (NASDAQ:VNET - Get Free Report) last released its earnings results on Wednesday, May 28th. The information technology services provider reported ($0.12) EPS for the quarter, missing analysts' consensus estimates of ($0.01) by ($0.11). The company had revenue of $309.52 million for the quarter, compared to analysts' expectations of $2.22 billion. VNET Group had a return on equity of 2.11% and a net margin of 1.66%. During the same period in the prior year, the firm earned ($0.28) EPS. On average, research analysts expect that VNET Group will post -0.06 earnings per share for the current year.

VNET Group declared that its Board of Directors has initiated a share buyback plan on Friday, June 27th that authorizes the company to repurchase $0.00 in shares. This repurchase authorization authorizes the information technology services provider to reacquire shares of its stock through open market purchases. Stock repurchase plans are generally a sign that the company's leadership believes its stock is undervalued.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On VNET Group

A number of large investors have recently made changes to their positions in VNET. Connor Clark & Lunn Investment Management Ltd. increased its holdings in shares of VNET Group by 472.1% in the 4th quarter. Connor Clark & Lunn Investment Management Ltd. now owns 278,801 shares of the information technology services provider's stock valued at $1,322,000 after purchasing an additional 230,068 shares in the last quarter. American Century Companies Inc. increased its holdings in shares of VNET Group by 20.4% in the 4th quarter. American Century Companies Inc. now owns 474,929 shares of the information technology services provider's stock valued at $2,251,000 after purchasing an additional 80,516 shares in the last quarter. JPMorgan Chase & Co. increased its holdings in shares of VNET Group by 622.8% in the 4th quarter. JPMorgan Chase & Co. now owns 989,402 shares of the information technology services provider's stock valued at $4,690,000 after purchasing an additional 852,519 shares in the last quarter. Norges Bank purchased a new position in shares of VNET Group in the 4th quarter valued at about $1,708,000. Finally, Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership purchased a new position in shares of VNET Group in the 4th quarter valued at about $1,811,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 72.83% of the company's stock.

About VNET Group

VNET Group, Inc, an investment holding company, provides hosting and related services in China. It offers managed hosting services consisting of managed retail services, such as colocation services that dedicate data center space to house customers' servers and networking equipment, as well as allow customers to lease partial or entire cabinets for their servers; interconnectivity services that allow customers to connect their servers; value-added services, including hybrid IT, bare metal, firewall, server load balancing, data backup and recovery, data center management, server management, and backup server services; cloud services that allow customers to run applications over the internet using IT infrastructure; and VPN Services that extend customers' private networks by setting up connections through the public internet.

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