Freedom Investment Management Inc. Acquires 3,338 Shares of W. R. Berkley Co. (NYSE:WRB)

Freedom Investment Management Inc. boosted its holdings in W. R. Berkley Co. (NYSE:WRB) by 64.4% in the third quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the SEC. The institutional investor owned 8,521 shares of the insurance provider’s stock after purchasing an additional 3,338 shares during the quarter. Freedom Investment Management Inc.’s holdings in W. R. Berkley were worth $483,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Several other institutional investors have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in WRB. Principal Financial Group Inc. increased its stake in shares of W. R. Berkley by 211.3% in the 3rd quarter. Principal Financial Group Inc. now owns 3,674,171 shares of the insurance provider’s stock valued at $208,436,000 after acquiring an additional 2,493,758 shares in the last quarter. The Manufacturers Life Insurance Company grew its holdings in W. R. Berkley by 104.1% in the third quarter. The Manufacturers Life Insurance Company now owns 4,154,783 shares of the insurance provider’s stock worth $235,701,000 after purchasing an additional 2,118,641 shares during the period. EULAV Asset Management increased its stake in W. R. Berkley by 50.0% in the third quarter. EULAV Asset Management now owns 1,564,890 shares of the insurance provider’s stock valued at $88,776,000 after purchasing an additional 521,630 shares in the last quarter. Raymond James & Associates increased its stake in W. R. Berkley by 58.2% in the third quarter. Raymond James & Associates now owns 1,333,418 shares of the insurance provider’s stock valued at $75,645,000 after purchasing an additional 490,669 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Confluence Investment Management LLC raised its holdings in shares of W. R. Berkley by 47.6% during the third quarter. Confluence Investment Management LLC now owns 1,363,295 shares of the insurance provider’s stock valued at $77,340,000 after purchasing an additional 439,853 shares during the period. 68.82% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Analyst Ratings Changes

WRB has been the subject of several research reports. Jefferies Financial Group raised their target price on W. R. Berkley from $53.00 to $57.00 and gave the company a “hold” rating in a research note on Wednesday, October 9th. Truist Financial boosted their price objective on W. R. Berkley from $64.00 to $68.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Thursday, October 17th. UBS Group upped their target price on W. R. Berkley from $67.00 to $69.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Tuesday, October 22nd. Royal Bank of Canada boosted their price target on shares of W. R. Berkley from $57.00 to $63.00 and gave the company a “sector perform” rating in a research note on Tuesday, October 22nd. Finally, StockNews.com raised shares of W. R. Berkley from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, five have issued a hold rating and seven have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $64.22.

W. R. Berkley Trading Down 0.6 %

Shares of WRB stock opened at $64.57 on Friday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.34, a quick ratio of 0.36 and a current ratio of 0.36. The company has a market capitalization of $24.61 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 16.54, a PEG ratio of 1.25 and a beta of 0.62. W. R. Berkley Co. has a 52-week low of $45.75 and a 52-week high of $65.49. The company has a 50-day simple moving average of $59.41 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $56.87.

W. R. Berkley (NYSE:WRB) last released its earnings results on Monday, October 21st. The insurance provider reported $0.93 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.92 by $0.01. The company had revenue of $2.93 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $2.93 billion. W. R. Berkley had a return on equity of 20.41% and a net margin of 11.96%. W. R. Berkley’s quarterly revenue was up 10.8% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the prior year, the company posted $0.90 earnings per share. Research analysts anticipate that W. R. Berkley Co. will post 3.94 EPS for the current fiscal year.

W. R. Berkley Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, September 30th. Stockholders of record on Monday, September 23rd were paid a dividend of $0.08 per share. This represents a $0.32 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.50%. The ex-dividend date was Monday, September 23rd. W. R. Berkley’s payout ratio is 8.20%.

W. R. Berkley Profile

W. R. Berkley Corporation, an insurance holding company, operates as a commercial lines writers worldwide. It operates in two segments, Insurance and Reinsurance & Monoline Excess. The Insurance segment underwrites commercial insurance business, including excess and surplus lines, admitted lines, and specialty personal lines.