Illinois Municipal Retirement Fund Purchases 7,018 Shares of Reliance, Inc. (NYSE:RS)

Illinois Municipal Retirement Fund boosted its position in shares of Reliance, Inc. (NYSE:RS) by 18.2% during the 4th quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 45,592 shares of the industrial products company’s stock after acquiring an additional 7,018 shares during the quarter. Illinois Municipal Retirement Fund owned 0.08% of Reliance worth $12,276,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Toronto Dominion Bank raised its position in Reliance by 26.7% during 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. Assetmark Inc. increased its holdings in shares of Reliance by 24.2% in the third quarter. Assetmark Inc. now owns 27,916 shares of the industrial products company’s stock valued at $8,074,000 after purchasing an additional 5,431 shares during the last quarter. Dearborn Partners LLC increased its holdings in shares of Reliance by 4.1% in the third quarter. Dearborn Partners LLC now owns 86,406 shares of the industrial products company’s stock valued at $24,989,000 after purchasing an additional 3,419 shares during the last quarter. Pure Financial Advisors LLC increased its holdings in shares of Reliance by 232.9% in the fourth quarter. Pure Financial Advisors LLC now owns 9,281 shares of the industrial products company’s stock valued at $2,499,000 after purchasing an additional 6,493 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Group Inc. increased its holdings in shares of Reliance by 1.3% in the third quarter. Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Group Inc. now owns 127,806 shares of the industrial products company’s stock valued at $36,963,000 after purchasing an additional 1,696 shares during the last quarter. 79.26% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several equities analysts have commented on RS shares. The Goldman Sachs Group started coverage on shares of Reliance in a report on Monday, December 2nd. They issued a “neutral” rating and a $341.00 price objective on the stock. KeyCorp upped their price objective on shares of Reliance from $321.00 to $327.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Monday. Finally, Wolfe Research upgraded shares of Reliance from an “underperform” rating to a “peer perform” rating in a report on Wednesday, January 8th. Five equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and two have given a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, Reliance has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $329.17.

Reliance Trading Down 1.0 %

RS stock opened at $296.22 on Wednesday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.10, a quick ratio of 1.58 and a current ratio of 3.21. The company’s 50-day simple moving average is $282.48 and its 200 day simple moving average is $289.55. Reliance, Inc. has a 52 week low of $256.98 and a 52 week high of $342.20. The company has a market capitalization of $16.03 billion, a PE ratio of 19.19 and a beta of 0.90.

Reliance (NYSE:RS) last released its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, February 19th. The industrial products company reported $2.22 EPS for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $2.74 by ($0.52). Reliance had a net margin of 6.33% and a return on equity of 11.87%. The business had revenue of $3.13 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $3.04 billion. As a group, sell-side analysts anticipate that Reliance, Inc. will post 16.98 earnings per share for the current year.

Reliance Increases Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, March 21st. Shareholders of record on Friday, March 7th will be paid a dividend of $1.20 per share. This represents a $4.80 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.62%. This is an increase from Reliance’s previous quarterly dividend of $1.10. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, March 7th. Reliance’s dividend payout ratio is presently 31.09%.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Reliance news, CEO Karla R. Lewis sold 3,892 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Monday, December 2nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $323.90, for a total transaction of $1,260,618.80. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 85,117 shares in the company, valued at $27,569,396.30. This represents a 4.37 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. Corporate insiders own 0.69% of the company’s stock.

Reliance Profile

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.