Earnest Partners LLC Purchases 52,409 Shares of FirstCash Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:FCFS)

Earnest Partners LLC lifted its position in FirstCash Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:FCFS) by 2.3% during the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the SEC. The firm owned 2,338,671 shares of the company’s stock after purchasing an additional 52,409 shares during the quarter. FirstCash comprises approximately 1.1% of Earnest Partners LLC’s portfolio, making the stock its 18th largest holding. Earnest Partners LLC owned approximately 5.22% of FirstCash worth $242,286,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently made changes to their positions in the business. Vanguard Group Inc. raised its position in FirstCash by 0.5% during the fourth quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 4,112,978 shares of the company’s stock valued at $426,105,000 after purchasing an additional 22,009 shares in the last quarter. Fiduciary Management Inc. WI boosted its stake in shares of FirstCash by 76.1% in the 4th quarter. Fiduciary Management Inc. WI now owns 1,303,533 shares of the company’s stock valued at $135,046,000 after purchasing an additional 563,265 shares in the last quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP lifted its stake in FirstCash by 0.9% in the fourth quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 1,043,531 shares of the company’s stock worth $108,107,000 after purchasing an additional 9,264 shares during the last quarter. Sei Investments Co. boosted its position in FirstCash by 5.4% during the fourth quarter. Sei Investments Co. now owns 648,582 shares of the company’s stock valued at $67,193,000 after buying an additional 33,040 shares during the period. Finally, Vaughan Nelson Investment Management L.P. grew its stake in shares of FirstCash by 28.2% during the fourth quarter. Vaughan Nelson Investment Management L.P. now owns 560,591 shares of the company’s stock valued at $58,076,000 after buying an additional 123,386 shares during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 80.30% of the company’s stock.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other FirstCash news, CFO R Douglas Orr sold 2,000 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Wednesday, February 5th. The shares were sold at an average price of $113.35, for a total transaction of $226,700.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief financial officer now directly owns 100,567 shares in the company, valued at approximately $11,399,269.45. The trade was a 1.95 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Also, major shareholder Douglas Richard Rippel sold 300,000 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, February 11th. The shares were sold at an average price of $113.43, for a total value of $34,029,000.00. Following the sale, the insider now owns 4,431,869 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $502,706,900.67. This represents a 6.34 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. 14.77% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

FirstCash Stock Performance

Shares of FCFS stock opened at $131.95 on Friday. The stock has a fifty day moving average of $118.29 and a 200 day moving average of $111.96. The firm has a market capitalization of $5.91 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 23.03 and a beta of 0.58. The company has a quick ratio of 3.15, a current ratio of 4.14 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.84. FirstCash Holdings, Inc. has a 52 week low of $100.24 and a 52 week high of $134.15.

FirstCash (NASDAQ:FCFS) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, April 24th. The company reported $2.07 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $1.75 by $0.32. FirstCash had a return on equity of 14.99% and a net margin of 7.64%. The company had revenue of $836.42 million for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $837.11 million. As a group, research analysts expect that FirstCash Holdings, Inc. will post 7.7 earnings per share for the current year.

FirstCash Dividend Announcement

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, May 30th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, May 15th will be issued a $0.38 dividend. This represents a $1.52 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.15%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, May 15th. FirstCash’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 26.53%.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Separately, Stephens reiterated an “overweight” rating and issued a $137.00 price objective on shares of FirstCash in a research report on Wednesday, February 19th.

FirstCash Profile

FirstCash Holdings, Inc, together with its subsidiaries, operates retail pawn stores in the United States, Mexico, and rest of Latin America. The company operates in three segments: U.S. Pawn, Latin America Pawn, and Retail POS Payment Solutions segments. Its pawn stores lend money on the collateral of pledged personal property, including jewelry, electronics, tools, appliances, sporting goods, and musical instruments; and retails merchandise acquired through collateral forfeitures on forfeited pawn loans and over-the-counter purchases of merchandise directly from customers.