Westwood Holdings Group Inc. Sells 405,733 Shares of Pembina Pipeline Co. (NYSE:PBA)

Westwood Holdings Group Inc. decreased its holdings in shares of Pembina Pipeline Co. (NYSE:PBA) (TSE:PPL) by 26.2% in the 4th quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The firm owned 1,140,830 shares of the pipeline company’s stock after selling 405,733 shares during the quarter. Westwood Holdings Group Inc.’s holdings in Pembina Pipeline were worth $42,154,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in PBA. Vanguard Group Inc. grew its stake in shares of Pembina Pipeline by 3.2% in the fourth quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 24,887,077 shares of the pipeline company’s stock worth $919,503,000 after acquiring an additional 770,729 shares during the last quarter. Deutsche Bank AG grew its position in Pembina Pipeline by 3.0% in the 4th quarter. Deutsche Bank AG now owns 14,247,662 shares of the pipeline company’s stock worth $526,451,000 after purchasing an additional 413,373 shares during the last quarter. TD Asset Management Inc. grew its position in Pembina Pipeline by 5.4% in the 4th quarter. TD Asset Management Inc. now owns 6,789,722 shares of the pipeline company’s stock worth $250,732,000 after purchasing an additional 347,872 shares during the last quarter. Connor Clark & Lunn Investment Management Ltd. increased its holdings in shares of Pembina Pipeline by 0.5% during the 4th quarter. Connor Clark & Lunn Investment Management Ltd. now owns 6,249,624 shares of the pipeline company’s stock worth $230,610,000 after purchasing an additional 32,519 shares during the period. Finally, Scotia Capital Inc. raised its position in shares of Pembina Pipeline by 1.7% during the fourth quarter. Scotia Capital Inc. now owns 4,969,977 shares of the pipeline company’s stock valued at $183,596,000 after buying an additional 85,121 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 55.37% of the company’s stock.

Pembina Pipeline Price Performance

NYSE:PBA opened at $37.64 on Monday. The company has a market capitalization of $21.87 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 15.56 and a beta of 0.81. The company has a 50-day moving average of $38.31 and a 200-day moving average of $38.26. Pembina Pipeline Co. has a 52 week low of $34.13 and a 52 week high of $43.44. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.79, a quick ratio of 0.51 and a current ratio of 0.65.

Pembina Pipeline (NYSE:PBA) (TSE:PPL) last issued its earnings results on Thursday, May 8th. The pipeline company reported $0.80 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.57 by $0.23. The business had revenue of $1.14 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $1.47 billion. Pembina Pipeline had a return on equity of 13.62% and a net margin of 25.39%. Pembina Pipeline’s quarterly revenue was up 48.2% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the prior year, the firm posted $0.73 EPS. As a group, equities research analysts anticipate that Pembina Pipeline Co. will post 2.15 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Pembina Pipeline Increases Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, June 30th. Shareholders of record on Monday, June 16th will be issued a dividend of $0.5109 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Monday, June 16th. This is a boost from Pembina Pipeline’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.48. This represents a $2.04 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 5.43%. Pembina Pipeline’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 89.14%.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Separately, Citigroup raised Pembina Pipeline from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report on Monday, March 10th. Three equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and four have given a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the stock has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $56.00.

Pembina Pipeline Profile

Pembina Pipeline Corporation provides energy transportation and midstream services. It operates through three segments: Pipelines, Facilities, and Marketing & New Ventures. The Pipelines segment operates conventional, oil sands and heavy oil, and transmission assets with a transportation capacity of 2.9 millions of barrels of oil equivalent per day, the ground storage capacity of 10 millions of barrels, and rail terminalling capacity of approximately 105 thousands of barrels of oil equivalent per day serving markets and basins across North America.