Wells Fargo & Company MN Has $70.96 Million Holdings in Moelis & Company (NYSE:MC)

Wells Fargo & Company MN trimmed its position in shares of Moelis & Company (NYSE:MC) by 10.2% in the 4th quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The institutional investor owned 960,478 shares of the asset manager’s stock after selling 108,507 shares during the period. Wells Fargo & Company MN’s holdings in Moelis & Company were worth $70,960,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Several other large investors have also made changes to their positions in MC. Vanguard Group Inc. lifted its position in shares of Moelis & Company by 1.2% in the fourth quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 8,147,315 shares of the asset manager’s stock worth $601,924,000 after buying an additional 99,766 shares during the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC lifted its holdings in Moelis & Company by 0.7% in the 3rd quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 1,590,316 shares of the asset manager’s stock worth $108,973,000 after purchasing an additional 10,698 shares during the last quarter. Madison Investment Advisors LLC bought a new stake in Moelis & Company during the fourth quarter worth approximately $86,062,000. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. grew its holdings in Moelis & Company by 1.4% during the fourth quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 935,552 shares of the asset manager’s stock valued at $69,119,000 after purchasing an additional 12,632 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Assenagon Asset Management S.A. raised its position in shares of Moelis & Company by 7.5% in the fourth quarter. Assenagon Asset Management S.A. now owns 768,945 shares of the asset manager’s stock valued at $56,810,000 after purchasing an additional 53,473 shares during the period. Institutional investors own 91.53% of the company’s stock.

Insider Activity

In related news, Director Kenneth Shropshire sold 2,551 shares of Moelis & Company stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, February 21st. The stock was sold at an average price of $72.30, for a total value of $184,437.30. Following the sale, the director now owns 6,940 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $501,762. This trade represents a 26.88 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, insider Christopher Callesano sold 1,282 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, February 19th. The stock was sold at an average price of $74.00, for a total transaction of $94,868.00. Following the transaction, the insider now directly owns 1,227 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $90,798. This represents a 51.10 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 22,721 shares of company stock valued at $1,677,017 in the last ninety days. 6.40% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of research analysts recently issued reports on the stock. Wells Fargo & Company lowered their target price on shares of Moelis & Company from $63.00 to $55.00 and set an “equal weight” rating on the stock in a research note on Tuesday. StockNews.com cut Moelis & Company from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Thursday, March 13th. JMP Securities reaffirmed a “market perform” rating on shares of Moelis & Company in a report on Thursday, February 6th. The Goldman Sachs Group reduced their price objective on Moelis & Company from $86.00 to $75.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a research report on Friday, March 14th. Finally, Morgan Stanley cut their target price on shares of Moelis & Company from $70.00 to $42.00 and set an “underweight” rating for the company in a research note on Monday. Two analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, five have assigned a hold rating and one has assigned a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $62.50.

Moelis & Company Stock Performance

Shares of MC opened at $48.79 on Wednesday. The stock has a fifty day moving average price of $66.28 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $70.62. The company has a market cap of $3.66 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 27.72 and a beta of 1.53. Moelis & Company has a 52-week low of $46.24 and a 52-week high of $82.89.

Moelis & Company (NYSE:MC) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, February 5th. The asset manager reported $1.18 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.39 by $0.79. Moelis & Company had a return on equity of 38.49% and a net margin of 11.39%. As a group, research analysts predict that Moelis & Company will post 2.97 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Moelis & Company Increases Dividend

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, March 27th. Stockholders of record on Tuesday, February 18th were given a dividend of $0.65 per share. This is a positive change from Moelis & Company’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.60. This represents a $2.60 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 5.33%. The ex-dividend date was Tuesday, February 18th. Moelis & Company’s payout ratio is presently 147.73%.

Moelis & Company Profile

Moelis & Co operates as a holding company. It engages in the provision of financial advisory, capital raising and asset management services to a client base including corporations, governments, sovereign wealth funds and financial sponsors. The firm focuses on clients including large public multinational corporations, middle market private companies, financial sponsors, entrepreneurs and governments.