Mitsubishi UFJ Asset Management Co. Ltd. Purchases 24,244 Shares of Pentair plc (NYSE:PNR)

Mitsubishi UFJ Asset Management Co. Ltd. increased its position in shares of Pentair plc (NYSE:PNR) by 8.0% in the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 328,922 shares of the industrial products company’s stock after acquiring an additional 24,244 shares during the quarter. Mitsubishi UFJ Asset Management Co. Ltd.’s holdings in Pentair were worth $33,241,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently bought and sold shares of PNR. Vanguard Group Inc. increased its position in shares of Pentair by 0.7% during the fourth quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 20,216,366 shares of the industrial products company’s stock worth $2,034,575,000 after purchasing an additional 148,031 shares in the last quarter. State Street Corp grew its stake in Pentair by 3.1% during the 3rd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 8,756,075 shares of the industrial products company’s stock worth $856,257,000 after buying an additional 259,922 shares during the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC increased its position in Pentair by 0.5% during the 3rd quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 3,999,519 shares of the industrial products company’s stock valued at $389,800,000 after buying an additional 19,853 shares in the last quarter. Bank of New York Mellon Corp raised its stake in Pentair by 0.7% in the fourth quarter. Bank of New York Mellon Corp now owns 1,010,068 shares of the industrial products company’s stock valued at $101,653,000 after buying an additional 7,434 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Allianz Asset Management GmbH boosted its holdings in Pentair by 67.4% in the fourth quarter. Allianz Asset Management GmbH now owns 888,212 shares of the industrial products company’s stock worth $89,390,000 after acquiring an additional 357,523 shares in the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 92.37% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several brokerages recently commented on PNR. Robert W. Baird raised shares of Pentair from a “neutral” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $114.00 price objective for the company in a research report on Tuesday, March 25th. StockNews.com upgraded shares of Pentair from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research note on Tuesday, March 11th. Baird R W upgraded Pentair from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Tuesday, March 25th. Citigroup lowered their price target on Pentair from $126.00 to $119.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research report on Monday, January 13th. Finally, Northcoast Research raised Pentair from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Wednesday, February 5th. Three investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twelve have given a buy rating and two have assigned a strong buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $112.27.

Pentair Trading Down 2.9 %

PNR stock opened at $86.76 on Friday. Pentair plc has a 52-week low of $72.63 and a 52-week high of $110.71. The company has a quick ratio of 0.92, a current ratio of 1.60 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.46. The firm has a market cap of $14.30 billion, a P/E ratio of 23.20, a PEG ratio of 1.87 and a beta of 1.23. The company’s 50-day simple moving average is $94.54 and its 200-day simple moving average is $98.77.

Pentair (NYSE:PNR) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, February 4th. The industrial products company reported $1.08 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.02 by $0.06. The company had revenue of $972.90 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $970.95 million. Pentair had a return on equity of 20.94% and a net margin of 15.32%. Pentair’s revenue for the quarter was down 1.2% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business posted $0.87 earnings per share. As a group, equities analysts forecast that Pentair plc will post 4.77 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Pentair Dividend Announcement

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, May 2nd. Investors of record on Friday, April 18th will be issued a $0.25 dividend. This represents a $1.00 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.15%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, April 17th. Pentair’s payout ratio is presently 26.74%.

About Pentair

Pentair plc provides various water solutions in the United States, Western Europe, China, Eastern Europe, Latin America, the Middle East, Southeast Asia, Australia, Canada, and Japan. The company operates through three segments: Flow, Water Solutions, and Pool. The Flow segment designs, manufactures, and sells fluid treatment and pump products and systems, including pressure vessels, gas recovery solutions, membrane bioreactors, wastewater reuse systems and advanced membrane filtration, separation systems, water disposal pumps, water supply pumps, fluid transfer pumps, turbine pumps, solid handling pumps, and agricultural spray nozzles for fluid delivery, ion exchange, desalination, food and beverage, separation technologies in the oil and gas industry, residential and municipal wells, water treatment, wastewater solids handling, pressure boosting, circulation and transfer, fire suppression, flood control, agricultural irrigation, and crop spray in residential, commercial, and industrial markets.