Focus Partners Advisor Solutions LLC Sells 4,643 Shares of Citizens Financial Group, Inc. $CFG

Focus Partners Advisor Solutions LLC cut its position in Citizens Financial Group, Inc. (NYSE:CFG) by 30.3% in the 2nd quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The firm owned 10,696 shares of the bank’s stock after selling 4,643 shares during the period. Focus Partners Advisor Solutions LLC’s holdings in Citizens Financial Group were worth $478,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Several other large investors have also recently bought and sold shares of the company. Fuller & Thaler Asset Management Inc. raised its position in Citizens Financial Group by 7.2% in the first quarter. Fuller & Thaler Asset Management Inc. now owns 10,380,605 shares of the bank’s stock valued at $425,293,000 after purchasing an additional 697,494 shares during the last quarter. AQR Capital Management LLC increased its stake in shares of Citizens Financial Group by 19.1% in the first quarter. AQR Capital Management LLC now owns 7,366,754 shares of the bank’s stock valued at $294,007,000 after buying an additional 1,180,390 shares during the period. Royal Bank of Canada increased its stake in shares of Citizens Financial Group by 8.9% in the first quarter. Royal Bank of Canada now owns 6,801,856 shares of the bank’s stock valued at $278,672,000 after buying an additional 554,618 shares during the period. Nordea Investment Management AB increased its stake in shares of Citizens Financial Group by 20.7% in the second quarter. Nordea Investment Management AB now owns 6,399,905 shares of the bank’s stock valued at $287,932,000 after buying an additional 1,098,684 shares during the period. Finally, Dimensional Fund Advisors LP increased its stake in shares of Citizens Financial Group by 0.9% in the first quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 4,730,786 shares of the bank’s stock valued at $193,782,000 after buying an additional 41,704 shares during the period. 94.90% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several equities research analysts have recently weighed in on the company. Bank of America raised Citizens Financial Group from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and increased their price target for the company from $52.00 to $65.00 in a research note on Thursday, October 9th. Stephens reissued an “overweight” rating and issued a $60.00 price target on shares of Citizens Financial Group in a research note on Thursday, October 16th. Wall Street Zen raised Citizens Financial Group from a “sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Friday, July 18th. Barclays increased their price target on Citizens Financial Group from $55.00 to $56.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Thursday, October 16th. Finally, Morgan Stanley raised Citizens Financial Group from an “equal weight” rating to an “overweight” rating and raised their target price for the stock from $53.00 to $71.00 in a research note on Monday, September 29th. Two investment analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, sixteen have assigned a Buy rating and three have issued a Hold rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, Citizens Financial Group currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $56.57.

Citizens Financial Group Trading Down 1.8%

NYSE CFG opened at $50.40 on Thursday. The business has a 50 day simple moving average of $51.80 and a 200 day simple moving average of $46.11. Citizens Financial Group, Inc. has a one year low of $32.60 and a one year high of $55.24. The stock has a market capitalization of $21.74 billion, a P/E ratio of 14.12, a P/E/G ratio of 0.55 and a beta of 0.79. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.44, a current ratio of 0.85 and a quick ratio of 0.84.

Citizens Financial Group (NYSE:CFG) last released its earnings results on Wednesday, October 15th. The bank reported $1.05 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $1.03 by $0.02. Citizens Financial Group had a return on equity of 7.48% and a net margin of 14.17%.The business had revenue of $2.12 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $2.10 billion. During the same quarter last year, the firm posted $0.79 earnings per share. The firm’s revenue was up 11.4% on a year-over-year basis. Research analysts expect that Citizens Financial Group, Inc. will post 3.92 earnings per share for the current year.

Citizens Financial Group Increases Dividend

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, November 12th. Shareholders of record on Wednesday, October 29th will be issued a $0.46 dividend. The ex-dividend date is Wednesday, October 29th. This is an increase from Citizens Financial Group’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.42. This represents a $1.84 annualized dividend and a yield of 3.7%. Citizens Financial Group’s dividend payout ratio is currently 47.06%.

About Citizens Financial Group

Citizens Financial Group, Inc operates as the bank holding company that provides retail and commercial banking products and services to individuals, small businesses, middle-market companies, corporations, and institutions in the United States. The company operates in two segments, Consumer Banking and Commercial Banking.