Macquarie Group Ltd. Sells 31,225 Shares of Uniti Group Inc. (NASDAQ:UNIT)

Macquarie Group Ltd. decreased its position in Uniti Group Inc. (NASDAQ:UNIT – Get Rating) by 11.9% during the third quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The firm owned 230,170 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock after selling 31,225 shares during the quarter. Macquarie Group Ltd.’s holdings in Uniti Group were worth $1,611,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission.

A number of other institutional investors also recently modified their holdings of UNIT. Aaron Wealth Advisors LLC bought a new position in shares of Uniti Group in the third quarter valued at approximately $9,446,000. Nomura Holdings Inc. bought a new position in shares of Uniti Group in the first quarter valued at approximately $18,073,000. State Street Corp raised its position in shares of Uniti Group by 13.9% in the first quarter. State Street Corp now owns 8,352,630 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock valued at $116,170,000 after purchasing an additional 1,016,467 shares during the period. Pacer Advisors Inc. raised its position in shares of Uniti Group by 22.4% in the third quarter. Pacer Advisors Inc. now owns 3,165,719 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock valued at $22,002,000 after purchasing an additional 580,225 shares during the period. Finally, Foster & Motley Inc. raised its position in shares of Uniti Group by 321.3% in the third quarter. Foster & Motley Inc. now owns 402,677 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock valued at $2,799,000 after purchasing an additional 307,092 shares during the period. Institutional investors own 83.82% of the company’s stock.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, CEO Kenny Gunderman bought 225,000 shares of Uniti Group stock in a transaction dated Thursday, March 9th. The shares were bought at an average price of $4.37 per share, for a total transaction of $983,250.00. Following the purchase, the chief executive officer now owns 1,372,596 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $5,998,244.52. The purchase was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this link. Corporate insiders own 0.72% of the company’s stock.

Uniti Group Price Performance

UNIT opened at $4.28 on Friday. Uniti Group Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $4.20 and a fifty-two week high of $14.25. The firm’s fifty day moving average price is $5.84 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $6.87. The company has a market capitalization of $1.02 billion, a P/E ratio of -38.91, a P/E/G ratio of 0.20 and a beta of 1.31.

Uniti Group Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, April 14th. Shareholders of record on Friday, March 31st will be paid a dividend of $0.15 per share. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, March 30th. This represents a $0.60 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 14.02%. Uniti Group’s dividend payout ratio is currently -545.40%.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several brokerages have recently issued reports on UNIT. Morgan Stanley lowered their price objective on shares of Uniti Group from $8.00 to $7.00 and set an “underweight” rating on the stock in a research note on Tuesday, February 7th. Citigroup lowered their price objective on shares of Uniti Group from $9.00 to $7.25 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a research note on Wednesday, February 1st. Raymond James lowered their price objective on shares of Uniti Group from $12.00 to $8.00 and set a “strong-buy” rating on the stock in a research note on Wednesday, March 1st. The Goldman Sachs Group lowered their price objective on shares of Uniti Group from $7.00 to $6.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a research note on Monday, February 27th. Finally, Barclays lowered their price objective on shares of Uniti Group from $9.00 to $8.00 and set an “equal weight” rating on the stock in a research note on Monday, February 27th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, four have given a hold rating, one has assigned a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $7.46.

About Uniti Group

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Uniti Group, Inc is a real estate investment trust company, which is engaged in the acquisition and construction of mission infrastructure in the communications industry. It operates through the following business segments: Leasing, Fiber Infrastructure, Towers, Consumer CLEC, and Corporate. The Leasing segment represents the real estate investment trust operations of the company and includes the results from leasing business, Uniti leasing, which engages in the acquisition of mission-critical communications assets and leasing them to anchor customers on either and exclusive or shared-tenant basis.