Packaging Co. of America (NYSE:PKG) Lifted to “Overweight” at Wells Fargo & Company

Packaging Co. of America (NYSE:PKG) was upgraded by equities researchers at Wells Fargo & Company from an “equal weight” rating to an “overweight” rating in a report released on Wednesday, MarketBeat.com reports. The firm presently has a $191.00 price objective on the industrial products company’s stock, up from their previous price objective of $187.00. Wells Fargo & Company‘s target price suggests a potential upside of 11.53% from the stock’s previous close.

PKG has been the subject of a number of other research reports. Truist Financial increased their target price on shares of Packaging Co. of America from $170.00 to $187.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Thursday, January 4th. BNP Paribas lowered shares of Packaging Co. of America from an “outperform” rating to a “neutral” rating and set a $182.00 price objective for the company. in a research report on Friday, April 12th. StockNews.com lowered shares of Packaging Co. of America from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Friday, April 19th. Bank of America upgraded shares of Packaging Co. of America from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and raised their price objective for the company from $172.00 to $202.00 in a research report on Monday, March 4th. Finally, Citigroup raised their price objective on shares of Packaging Co. of America from $172.00 to $183.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Thursday, April 4th. Five analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and three have assigned a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, Packaging Co. of America currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $173.57.

Packaging Co. of America Price Performance

Shares of NYSE:PKG opened at $171.25 on Wednesday. The company has a quick ratio of 1.77, a current ratio of 2.57 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.62. The firm has a market capitalization of $15.37 billion, a PE ratio of 21.41, a P/E/G ratio of 4.22 and a beta of 0.78. Packaging Co. of America has a twelve month low of $122.20 and a twelve month high of $191.27. The company has a 50-day moving average price of $181.73 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $168.06.

Packaging Co. of America (NYSE:PKG) last issued its earnings results on Tuesday, April 23rd. The industrial products company reported $1.72 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.63 by $0.09. The firm had revenue of $1.98 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.91 billion. Packaging Co. of America had a net margin of 9.25% and a return on equity of 18.94%. The company’s quarterly revenue was up .2% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter last year, the business earned $2.20 earnings per share. Equities analysts forecast that Packaging Co. of America will post 8.24 EPS for the current year.

Insider Buying and Selling at Packaging Co. of America

In other Packaging Co. of America news, VP Thomas A. Hassfurther sold 14,191 shares of Packaging Co. of America stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, February 22nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $173.80, for a total transaction of $2,466,395.80. Following the completion of the sale, the vice president now directly owns 183,930 shares in the company, valued at $31,967,034. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. In other Packaging Co. of America news, VP Thomas A. Hassfurther sold 14,191 shares of Packaging Co. of America stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, February 22nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $173.80, for a total transaction of $2,466,395.80. Following the transaction, the vice president now directly owns 183,930 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $31,967,034. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, VP Thomas A. Hassfurther sold 13,850 shares of Packaging Co. of America stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, February 29th. The stock was sold at an average price of $181.06, for a total transaction of $2,507,681.00. Following the transaction, the vice president now directly owns 187,647 shares in the company, valued at $33,975,365.82. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 38,041 shares of company stock worth $6,799,177 over the last three months. 1.60% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several large investors have recently made changes to their positions in PKG. Norges Bank purchased a new position in shares of Packaging Co. of America during the fourth quarter worth approximately $163,314,000. Boston Partners purchased a new position in shares of Packaging Co. of America in the third quarter worth $123,821,000. Balyasny Asset Management L.P. increased its stake in shares of Packaging Co. of America by 175.3% in the fourth quarter. Balyasny Asset Management L.P. now owns 438,285 shares of the industrial products company’s stock worth $71,401,000 after buying an additional 279,059 shares during the period. Retirement Systems of Alabama increased its stake in shares of Packaging Co. of America by 1,133.4% in the fourth quarter. Retirement Systems of Alabama now owns 250,752 shares of the industrial products company’s stock worth $40,850,000 after buying an additional 230,422 shares during the period. Finally, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. increased its stake in shares of Packaging Co. of America by 31.9% in the fourth quarter. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. now owns 783,619 shares of the industrial products company’s stock worth $127,659,000 after buying an additional 189,401 shares during the period. 89.78% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

About Packaging Co. of America

Packaging Corporation of America manufactures and sells containerboard and corrugated packaging products in the United States. The company operates through three segments: Packaging, Paper, and Corporate and Other. The Packaging segment offers various containerboard and corrugated packaging products, such as conventional shipping containers used to protect and transport manufactured goods; multi-color boxes and displays that help to merchandise the packaged product in retail locations; and honeycomb protective packaging products, as well as packaging for meat, fresh fruit and vegetables, processed food, beverages, and other industrial and consumer products.