South Dakota Investment Council Grows Holdings in Geo Group Inc (The) $GEO

South Dakota Investment Council grew its stake in Geo Group Inc (The) (NYSE:GEO) by 454.0% in the second quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The institutional investor owned 138,500 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock after buying an additional 113,500 shares during the quarter. South Dakota Investment Council’s holdings in Geo Group were worth $3,317,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also bought and sold shares of GEO. Principal Financial Group Inc. grew its stake in Geo Group by 2.7% in the 1st quarter. Principal Financial Group Inc. now owns 677,058 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock worth $19,777,000 after buying an additional 17,605 shares in the last quarter. Envestnet Asset Management Inc. purchased a new position in Geo Group in the 1st quarter worth approximately $515,000. Xponance Inc. grew its stake in Geo Group by 7.6% in the 1st quarter. Xponance Inc. now owns 10,120 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock worth $296,000 after buying an additional 712 shares in the last quarter. Edgestream Partners L.P. purchased a new position in Geo Group in the 1st quarter worth approximately $1,963,000. Finally, Mountain Hill Investment Partners Corp. purchased a new position in Geo Group in the 1st quarter worth approximately $929,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 76.10% of the company’s stock.

Geo Group Trading Down 0.7%

Shares of GEO opened at $16.85 on Tuesday. The firm has a market cap of $2.38 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 25.92, a PEG ratio of 1.87 and a beta of 0.75. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.07, a quick ratio of 0.90 and a current ratio of 0.90. Geo Group Inc has a fifty-two week low of $13.59 and a fifty-two week high of $36.46. The firm has a 50 day moving average price of $19.60 and a 200-day moving average price of $23.52.

Geo Group (NYSE:GEO) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, September 28th. The real estate investment trust reported $0.41 earnings per share for the quarter. The firm had revenue of $565.42 million during the quarter. Geo Group had a net margin of 3.69% and a return on equity of 7.26%. Geo Group has set its FY22 guidance at $2.40-2.46 EPS. As a group, equities research analysts forecast that Geo Group Inc will post 0.83 earnings per share for the current year.

Geo Group announced that its board has approved a share buyback plan on Wednesday, August 6th that permits the company to buyback $300.00 million in shares. This buyback authorization permits the real estate investment trust to repurchase up to 8.2% of its stock through open market purchases. Stock buyback plans are often a sign that the company’s leadership believes its stock is undervalued.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

GEO has been the subject of a number of research reports. Wall Street Zen raised shares of Geo Group from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research note on Saturday, October 11th. Jones Trading lowered their price objective on shares of Geo Group from $50.00 to $45.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a report on Thursday, August 7th. Finally, Weiss Ratings restated a “hold (c-)” rating on shares of Geo Group in a report on Friday. Four equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and one has assigned a Hold rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $37.00.

About Geo Group

The GEO Group, Inc (NYSE: GEO) engages in ownership, leasing, and management of secure facilities, processing centers, and community-based reentry facilities in the United States, Australia, the United Kingdom, and South Africa. The company also provides secure facility management services, including the provision of security, administrative, rehabilitation, education, and food services; reentry services, such as temporary housing, programming, employment assistance, and other services; electronic monitoring and supervision services; and transportation services; as well as designs, constructs, and finances new facilities through projects.