Kadant Inc. (NYSE:KAI) Shares Sold by Blair William & Co. IL

Blair William & Co. IL lowered its stake in Kadant Inc. (NYSE:KAI) by 46.5% during the fourth quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The institutional investor owned 12,393 shares of the industrial products company’s stock after selling 10,767 shares during the quarter. Blair William & Co. IL’s holdings in Kadant were worth $4,275,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Several other hedge funds also recently bought and sold shares of the stock. C2P Capital Advisory Group LLC d.b.a. Prosperity Capital Advisors acquired a new position in shares of Kadant in the 4th quarter worth approximately $193,595,000. Vanguard Group Inc. lifted its stake in Kadant by 25.0% during the fourth quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 1,218,273 shares of the industrial products company’s stock worth $420,292,000 after purchasing an additional 243,267 shares in the last quarter. Raymond James Financial Inc. purchased a new position in shares of Kadant during the fourth quarter worth $39,400,000. Conestoga Capital Advisors LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Kadant in the fourth quarter valued at $38,560,000. Finally, Erste Asset Management GmbH purchased a new stake in shares of Kadant in the 3rd quarter valued at $11,345,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 96.13% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Separately, Barrington Research reaffirmed an “outperform” rating and issued a $410.00 target price on shares of Kadant in a research report on Friday, February 14th.

Kadant Stock Up 0.4 %

Shares of NYSE KAI opened at $337.42 on Tuesday. Kadant Inc. has a 12-month low of $249.51 and a 12-month high of $429.95. The stock has a market cap of $3.97 billion, a P/E ratio of 35.59 and a beta of 1.25. The company has a current ratio of 2.29, a quick ratio of 1.46 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.37. The business’s fifty day simple moving average is $366.01 and its 200-day simple moving average is $360.60.

Kadant (NYSE:KAI) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, February 12th. The industrial products company reported $2.25 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.08 by $0.17. Kadant had a return on equity of 14.66% and a net margin of 10.59%. As a group, equities analysts predict that Kadant Inc. will post 9.97 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Kadant Increases Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, May 7th. Stockholders of record on Wednesday, April 9th will be issued a $0.34 dividend. This represents a $1.36 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.40%. This is a positive change from Kadant’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.32. The ex-dividend date is Wednesday, April 9th. Kadant’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 14.35%.

Kadant Company Profile

Kadant Inc supplies technologies and engineered systems worldwide. It operates in three segments: Flow Control, Industrial Processing, and Material Handling. The Flow Control segment develops, manufactures, and markets fluid-handling systems and equipment, such as rotary joints, syphons, turbulator bars, expansion joints, and engineered steam and condensate systems; and doctoring, cleaning, and filtration systems and related consumables consisting of doctor systems and holders, doctor blades, cleaning shower and fabric-conditioning systems, forming systems and wear surfaces, and water-filtration systems.