Jupiter Asset Management Ltd. Purchases Shares of 58,261 W. R. Berkley Co. (NYSE:WRB)

Jupiter Asset Management Ltd. bought a new position in W. R. Berkley Co. (NYSE:WRB) in the second quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the SEC. The fund bought 58,261 shares of the insurance provider’s stock, valued at approximately $3,468,000.

A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently modified their holdings of the stock. Clarius Group LLC purchased a new position in shares of W. R. Berkley in the 2nd quarter worth approximately $219,000. EULAV Asset Management boosted its holdings in shares of W. R. Berkley by 29.1% in the 2nd quarter. EULAV Asset Management now owns 905,544 shares of the insurance provider’s stock worth $53,934,000 after purchasing an additional 204,000 shares during the period. Cetera Investment Advisers boosted its holdings in shares of W. R. Berkley by 45.2% in the 2nd quarter. Cetera Investment Advisers now owns 11,900 shares of the insurance provider’s stock worth $709,000 after purchasing an additional 3,705 shares during the period. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP boosted its holdings in shares of W. R. Berkley by 8.9% in the 2nd quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 1,756,562 shares of the insurance provider’s stock worth $104,618,000 after purchasing an additional 143,566 shares during the period. Finally, BNP Paribas Arbitrage SNC boosted its holdings in shares of W. R. Berkley by 38.2% in the 2nd quarter. BNP Paribas Arbitrage SNC now owns 212,246 shares of the insurance provider’s stock worth $12,641,000 after purchasing an additional 58,716 shares during the period. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 66.34% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of equities research analysts recently issued reports on the company. StockNews.com assumed coverage on W. R. Berkley in a research note on Thursday, October 5th. They set a “buy” rating for the company. Royal Bank of Canada reissued an “outperform” rating and set a $72.00 price target on shares of W. R. Berkley in a research note on Tuesday, October 24th. Three research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and six have assigned a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, W. R. Berkley has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $75.50.

W. R. Berkley Trading Up 0.6 %

Shares of NYSE WRB opened at $70.21 on Friday. The firm has a market cap of $18.11 billion, a PE ratio of 14.16, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.59 and a beta of 0.59. The company has a quick ratio of 0.39, a current ratio of 0.39 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.41. W. R. Berkley Co. has a twelve month low of $55.50 and a twelve month high of $76.99. The business has a fifty day simple moving average of $65.55 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $61.81.

W. R. Berkley (NYSE:WRB) last released its quarterly earnings results on Monday, October 23rd. The insurance provider reported $1.35 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $1.18 by $0.17. The firm had revenue of $2.64 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $2.67 billion. W. R. Berkley had a return on equity of 18.52% and a net margin of 11.45%. The business’s revenue for the quarter was up 8.2% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the company posted $1.01 EPS. Analysts expect that W. R. Berkley Co. will post 4.79 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

W. R. Berkley Announces Dividend

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, October 4th. Stockholders of record on Monday, September 25th were given a $0.11 dividend. This represents a $0.44 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.63%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Friday, September 22nd. W. R. Berkley’s payout ratio is 8.87%.

W. R. Berkley Profile

W. R. Berkley Corporation, an insurance holding company, operates as a commercial lines writer in the United States and internationally. It operates in two segments, Insurance and Reinsurance & Monoline Excess. The Insurance segment underwrites commercial insurance business, including premises operations, commercial automobile, property, products liability, and general and professional liability lines.