Phocas Financial Corp. Acquires 54,605 Shares of Artisan Partners Asset Management Inc. (NYSE:APAM)

Phocas Financial Corp. raised its holdings in Artisan Partners Asset Management Inc. (NYSE:APAM) by 69.1% in the 2nd quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the SEC. The fund owned 133,671 shares of the asset manager’s stock after purchasing an additional 54,605 shares during the quarter. Phocas Financial Corp. owned approximately 0.17% of Artisan Partners Asset Management worth $5,255,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Other institutional investors have also recently bought and sold shares of the company. Kayne Anderson Rudnick Investment Management LLC raised its position in shares of Artisan Partners Asset Management by 5.9% during the first quarter. Kayne Anderson Rudnick Investment Management LLC now owns 6,876,994 shares of the asset manager’s stock worth $219,926,000 after acquiring an additional 382,572 shares during the last quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. raised its position in shares of Artisan Partners Asset Management by 1.5% during the third quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 6,439,054 shares of the asset manager’s stock worth $173,404,000 after acquiring an additional 92,289 shares during the last quarter. BlackRock Inc. raised its position in shares of Artisan Partners Asset Management by 1.1% during the first quarter. BlackRock Inc. now owns 5,092,524 shares of the asset manager’s stock worth $200,390,000 after acquiring an additional 57,485 shares during the last quarter. Morgan Stanley raised its position in shares of Artisan Partners Asset Management by 138.0% during the fourth quarter. Morgan Stanley now owns 1,817,495 shares of the asset manager’s stock worth $53,980,000 after acquiring an additional 1,053,748 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Wasatch Advisors LP raised its position in shares of Artisan Partners Asset Management by 20.8% during the first quarter. Wasatch Advisors LP now owns 1,786,292 shares of the asset manager’s stock worth $57,126,000 after acquiring an additional 307,907 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors own 89.45% of the company’s stock.

Artisan Partners Asset Management Trading Down 0.1 %

NYSE:APAM traded down $0.02 during mid-day trading on Tuesday, hitting $36.94. The company had a trading volume of 75,761 shares, compared to its average volume of 674,635. Artisan Partners Asset Management Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $25.67 and a fifty-two week high of $42.97. The business’s fifty day moving average is $39.04 and its two-hundred day moving average is $35.78. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.65, a quick ratio of 0.58 and a current ratio of 0.58. The firm has a market cap of $2.71 billion, a P/E ratio of 12.78 and a beta of 1.86.

Artisan Partners Asset Management (NYSE:APAM) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, August 2nd. The asset manager reported $0.71 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.61 by $0.10. Artisan Partners Asset Management had a return on equity of 77.65% and a net margin of 21.49%. The company had revenue of $242.90 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $245.55 million. During the same period in the prior year, the company earned $0.79 earnings per share. The company’s revenue for the quarter was down 3.4% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, research analysts expect that Artisan Partners Asset Management Inc. will post 2.93 earnings per share for the current year.

Artisan Partners Asset Management Increases Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, August 31st. Shareholders of record on Thursday, August 17th were issued a $0.61 dividend. This is an increase from Artisan Partners Asset Management’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.50. This represents a $2.44 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 6.61%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Wednesday, August 16th. Artisan Partners Asset Management’s dividend payout ratio is 84.43%.

Analyst Ratings Changes

APAM has been the subject of a number of recent research reports. Royal Bank of Canada boosted their target price on Artisan Partners Asset Management from $40.00 to $45.00 in a research report on Friday, July 21st. StockNews.com raised Artisan Partners Asset Management from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research note on Thursday, September 14th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, two have issued a hold rating and two have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $34.75.

About Artisan Partners Asset Management

Artisan Partners Asset Management Inc is publicly owned investment manager. It provides its services to pension and profit sharing plans, trusts, endowments, foundations, charitable organizations, government entities, private funds and non-U.S. funds, as well as mutual funds, non-U.S. funds and collective trusts.