Legal & General Group Plc Lowers Stake in Albany International Corp. (NYSE:AIN)

Legal & General Group Plc lessened its stake in Albany International Corp. (NYSE:AIN) by 1.9% during the 4th quarter, according to its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The firm owned 89,133 shares of the textile maker’s stock after selling 1,694 shares during the period. Legal & General Group Plc owned 0.28% of Albany International worth $7,128,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the stock. JPMorgan Chase & Co. increased its position in shares of Albany International by 14.0% during the third quarter. JPMorgan Chase & Co. now owns 80,618 shares of the textile maker’s stock worth $7,163,000 after acquiring an additional 9,931 shares during the period. Advantage Alpha Capital Partners LP increased its holdings in Albany International by 18.1% during the 4th quarter. Advantage Alpha Capital Partners LP now owns 28,164 shares of the textile maker’s stock worth $2,252,000 after purchasing an additional 4,307 shares during the period. Principal Financial Group Inc. raised its position in Albany International by 6.6% during the 3rd quarter. Principal Financial Group Inc. now owns 586,268 shares of the textile maker’s stock valued at $52,071,000 after purchasing an additional 36,274 shares in the last quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. lifted its holdings in shares of Albany International by 0.4% in the 4th quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 3,493,846 shares of the textile maker’s stock worth $279,403,000 after buying an additional 12,687 shares during the period. Finally, Geode Capital Management LLC grew its position in shares of Albany International by 1.2% during the 3rd quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 715,779 shares of the textile maker’s stock worth $63,609,000 after buying an additional 8,356 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors own 97.37% of the company’s stock.

Albany International Stock Down 0.8 %

Shares of AIN stock opened at $63.46 on Friday. The stock’s fifty day moving average price is $71.96 and its 200 day moving average price is $76.61. Albany International Corp. has a 1-year low of $57.71 and a 1-year high of $95.47. The company has a market cap of $1.96 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 19.83 and a beta of 1.29. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.36, a current ratio of 3.68 and a quick ratio of 2.94.

Albany International (NYSE:AIN) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, February 26th. The textile maker reported $0.58 EPS for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $0.63 by ($0.05). The company had revenue of $286.91 million during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $299.52 million. Albany International had a net margin of 7.92% and a return on equity of 12.20%. On average, research analysts expect that Albany International Corp. will post 3.23 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Albany International Dividend Announcement

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, April 7th. Stockholders of record on Friday, March 21st were issued a $0.27 dividend. This represents a $1.08 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.70%. The ex-dividend date was Friday, March 21st. Albany International’s dividend payout ratio is presently 38.71%.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of analysts recently weighed in on AIN shares. Robert W. Baird lowered their price objective on shares of Albany International from $104.00 to $92.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research note on Friday, February 28th. Truist Financial dropped their price objective on shares of Albany International from $88.00 to $80.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research note on Thursday. Bank of America reduced their price objective on shares of Albany International from $80.00 to $75.00 and set an “underperform” rating for the company in a research note on Tuesday, March 25th. StockNews.com raised Albany International from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report on Thursday. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. dropped their price objective on Albany International from $75.00 to $74.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a research report on Wednesday, January 15th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, one has issued a hold rating, three have given a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $80.40.

About Albany International

Albany International Corp., together with its subsidiaries, engages in the machine clothing and engineered composites businesses. The company operates in two segments, Machine Clothing (MC) and Albany Engineered Composites (AEC). The MC segment designs, manufactures, and markets paper machine clothing for use in the manufacturing of papers, paperboards, tissues, towels, pulps, nonwovens, building products, tannery, and textiles, as well as fiber cement and several other industrial applications.