Portside Wealth Group LLC Decreases Stock Position in W.R. Berkley Corporation $WRB

Portside Wealth Group LLC lessened its stake in W.R. Berkley Corporation (NYSE:WRB) by 20.7% in the second quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund owned 4,668 shares of the insurance provider’s stock after selling 1,217 shares during the period. Portside Wealth Group LLC’s holdings in W.R. Berkley were worth $343,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Other institutional investors and hedge funds have also bought and sold shares of the company. Brighton Jones LLC boosted its stake in shares of W.R. Berkley by 75.6% during the fourth quarter. Brighton Jones LLC now owns 50,503 shares of the insurance provider’s stock valued at $2,955,000 after purchasing an additional 21,737 shares during the period. Teachers Retirement System of The State of Kentucky increased its stake in shares of W.R. Berkley by 32.7% in the first quarter. Teachers Retirement System of The State of Kentucky now owns 23,253 shares of the insurance provider’s stock worth $1,654,000 after buying an additional 5,726 shares during the period. HighPoint Advisor Group LLC raised its holdings in W.R. Berkley by 6.4% during the 1st quarter. HighPoint Advisor Group LLC now owns 5,283 shares of the insurance provider’s stock valued at $377,000 after buying an additional 316 shares during the last quarter. Universal Beteiligungs und Servicegesellschaft mbH boosted its position in W.R. Berkley by 3.2% during the 1st quarter. Universal Beteiligungs und Servicegesellschaft mbH now owns 247,919 shares of the insurance provider’s stock valued at $17,642,000 after buying an additional 7,702 shares during the period. Finally, Bank Julius Baer & Co. Ltd Zurich grew its holdings in W.R. Berkley by 48.2% in the 1st quarter. Bank Julius Baer & Co. Ltd Zurich now owns 6,091 shares of the insurance provider’s stock worth $433,000 after acquiring an additional 1,981 shares during the last quarter. 68.82% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of brokerages recently commented on WRB. Weiss Ratings restated a “buy (b)” rating on shares of W.R. Berkley in a report on Wednesday, October 8th. Jefferies Financial Group dropped their price target on W.R. Berkley from $76.00 to $75.00 and set a “hold” rating on the stock in a research report on Tuesday, October 21st. Cantor Fitzgerald set a $78.00 price objective on shares of W.R. Berkley in a research report on Monday, October 27th. Wells Fargo & Company set a $66.00 target price on W.R. Berkley and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a report on Tuesday, October 21st. Finally, Barclays restated an “underweight” rating and set a $73.00 price objective on shares of W.R. Berkley in a research report on Wednesday, October 8th. Three investment analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, ten have assigned a Hold rating and two have issued a Sell rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, W.R. Berkley has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $74.85.

W.R. Berkley Trading Down 1.0%

Shares of WRB stock opened at $76.69 on Thursday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.31, a quick ratio of 0.37 and a current ratio of 0.37. The stock has a fifty day simple moving average of $75.05 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $72.82. The firm has a market capitalization of $29.14 billion, a PE ratio of 16.11, a PEG ratio of 2.73 and a beta of 0.40. W.R. Berkley Corporation has a 52-week low of $55.97 and a 52-week high of $78.48.

W.R. Berkley (NYSE:WRB) last released its quarterly earnings data on Monday, October 20th. The insurance provider reported $1.10 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.07 by $0.03. W.R. Berkley had a return on equity of 19.35% and a net margin of 13.01%.The firm had revenue of $3.77 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $3.16 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company posted $0.93 earnings per share. The business’s quarterly revenue was up 10.8% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, analysts predict that W.R. Berkley Corporation will post 4.33 EPS for the current fiscal year.

W.R. Berkley Announces Dividend

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Tuesday, September 30th. Stockholders of record on Monday, September 22nd were issued a $0.09 dividend. This represents a $0.36 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.5%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Monday, September 22nd. W.R. Berkley’s payout ratio is 7.56%.

W.R. Berkley Company Profile

W. R. Berkley Corporation, an insurance holding company, operates as a commercial lines writers worldwide. It operates in two segments, Insurance and Reinsurance & Monoline Excess. The Insurance segment underwrites commercial insurance business, including excess and surplus lines, admitted lines, and specialty personal lines.