Norges Bank Invests $186.26 Million in Reliance, Inc. (NYSE:RS)

Norges Bank acquired a new stake in Reliance, Inc. (NYSE:RS) in the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The firm acquired 691,729 shares of the industrial products company’s stock, valued at approximately $186,255,000.

Other institutional investors also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Proficio Capital Partners LLC purchased a new position in shares of Reliance during the 4th quarter worth approximately $7,352,000. Toronto Dominion Bank raised its position in Reliance by 26.7% in the third quarter. Toronto Dominion Bank now owns 8,198 shares of the industrial products company’s stock worth $2,371,000 after acquiring an additional 1,729 shares in the last quarter. Pure Financial Advisors LLC raised its position in Reliance by 232.9% in the fourth quarter. Pure Financial Advisors LLC now owns 9,281 shares of the industrial products company’s stock worth $2,499,000 after acquiring an additional 6,493 shares in the last quarter. World Investment Advisors LLC acquired a new stake in Reliance in the third quarter valued at $4,600,000. Finally, Nordea Investment Management AB boosted its position in shares of Reliance by 11.0% during the 4th quarter. Nordea Investment Management AB now owns 4,951 shares of the industrial products company’s stock worth $1,332,000 after purchasing an additional 489 shares in the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 79.26% of the company’s stock.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Reliance news, CEO Karla R. Lewis sold 31,136 shares of the stock in a transaction on Monday, February 24th. The stock was sold at an average price of $300.52, for a total transaction of $9,356,990.72. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 90,230 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $27,115,919.60. This represents a 25.65 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available through this link. 0.69% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of brokerages have recently issued reports on RS. KeyCorp increased their price target on shares of Reliance from $321.00 to $327.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Monday, February 24th. Wolfe Research upgraded shares of Reliance from an “underperform” rating to a “peer perform” rating in a research report on Wednesday, January 8th. Finally, The Goldman Sachs Group assumed coverage on Reliance in a research note on Monday, December 2nd. They set a “neutral” rating and a $341.00 price target on the stock. Five equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and two 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 $329.17.

Reliance Stock Down 2.5 %

RS stock opened at $286.34 on Monday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.10, a current ratio of 3.21 and a quick ratio of 1.58. Reliance, Inc. has a 12 month low of $256.98 and a 12 month high of $342.20. The firm has a market capitalization of $15.17 billion, a PE ratio of 18.55 and a beta of 0.87. The company’s 50 day simple moving average is $289.01 and its 200-day simple moving average is $290.64.

Reliance (NYSE:RS) last released its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, February 19th. The industrial products company reported $2.22 earnings per share for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $2.74 by ($0.52). Reliance had a return on equity of 11.87% and a net margin of 6.33%. The company had revenue of $3.13 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $3.04 billion. Equities analysts expect that Reliance, Inc. will post 16.98 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Reliance Increases Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, March 21st. Shareholders of record on Friday, March 7th were issued a $1.20 dividend. This represents a $4.80 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.68%. This is a positive change from Reliance’s previous quarterly dividend of $1.10. The ex-dividend date was Friday, March 7th. Reliance’s dividend payout ratio is 31.09%.

About Reliance

Reliance, Inc operates as a diversified metal solutions provider and the metals service center company in the United States, Canada, and internationally. The company distributes a line of approximately 100,000 metal products, including alloy, aluminum, brass, copper, carbon steel, stainless steel, titanium, and specialty steel products; and provides metals processing services to general manufacturing, non-residential construction, transportation, aerospace, energy, electronics and semiconductor fabrication, and heavy industries.