Investors Purchase Large Volume of KKR & Co. Inc. Call Options (NYSE:KKR)

KKR & Co. Inc. (NYSE:KKR) saw unusually large options trading on Thursday. Investors acquired 19,916 call options on the stock. This is an increase of 282% compared to the typical daily volume of 5,209 call options.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other KKR & Co. Inc. news, major shareholder Kkr Alternative Assets Llc bought 286,402 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, March 13th. The shares were purchased at an average cost of $24.94 per share, for a total transaction of $7,142,865.88. Following the transaction, the insider now directly owns 429,259 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $10,705,719.46. The purchase was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at this hyperlink. In other news, major shareholder Kkr Group Partnership L.P. sold 13,800,000 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, March 11th. The stock was sold at an average price of $9.87, for a total transaction of $136,206,000.00. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, major shareholder Kkr Alternative Assets Llc bought 286,402 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, March 13th. The shares were acquired at an average price of $24.94 per share, for a total transaction of $7,142,865.88. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider now directly owns 429,259 shares in the company, valued at $10,705,719.46. The disclosure for this purchase can be found here. 39.34% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several institutional investors and hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in KKR. Wellington Management Group LLP grew its position in KKR & Co. Inc. by 219.5% during the fourth quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP now owns 16,206,904 shares of the asset manager’s stock worth $1,342,742,000 after buying an additional 11,134,363 shares during the period. Norges Bank acquired a new position in KKR & Co. Inc. during the fourth quarter worth about $649,798,000. Winslow Capital Management LLC acquired a new position in KKR & Co. Inc. during the fourth quarter worth about $344,354,000. Vanguard Group Inc. grew its position in KKR & Co. Inc. by 4.3% during the fourth quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 41,670,039 shares of the asset manager’s stock worth $3,452,363,000 after buying an additional 1,728,782 shares during the period. Finally, Bain Capital Public Equity Management II LLC acquired a new stake in shares of KKR & Co. Inc. in the fourth quarter valued at approximately $68,286,000. 76.26% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of brokerages recently weighed in on KKR. Morgan Stanley raised their price target on shares of KKR & Co. Inc. from $75.00 to $82.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Wednesday, January 24th. Wells Fargo & Company lifted their price target on shares of KKR & Co. Inc. from $93.00 to $103.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Wednesday, February 7th. StockNews.com raised shares of KKR & Co. Inc. from a “sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Thursday. Barclays lifted their target price on shares of KKR & Co. Inc. from $107.00 to $113.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Monday, April 8th. Finally, Keefe, Bruyette & Woods reiterated an “outperform” rating and issued a $104.00 target price on shares of KKR & Co. Inc. in a report on Thursday, April 4th. Two analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and twelve have given a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $90.64.

KKR & Co. Inc. Stock Performance

Shares of KKR & Co. Inc. stock traded up $1.21 on Thursday, reaching $96.33. 2,544,117 shares of the stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 3,464,389. KKR & Co. Inc. has a 1-year low of $47.79 and a 1-year high of $103.48. The company has a current ratio of 0.11, a quick ratio of 0.11 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.82. The business has a fifty day moving average price of $97.60 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $83.97. The firm has a market capitalization of $85.25 billion, a PE ratio of 23.28, a PEG ratio of 0.86 and a beta of 1.62.

KKR & Co. Inc. (NYSE:KKR) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, February 6th. The asset manager reported $0.84 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.81 by $0.03. KKR & Co. Inc. had a net margin of 25.74% and a return on equity of 4.21%. The business had revenue of $1.07 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $995.64 million. As a group, research analysts anticipate that KKR & Co. Inc. will post 4.15 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

KKR & Co. Inc. Dividend Announcement

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, March 1st. Stockholders of record on Friday, February 16th were paid a dividend of $0.165 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, February 15th. This represents a $0.66 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.69%. KKR & Co. Inc.’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 16.18%.

KKR & Co. Inc. Company Profile

KKR & Co Inc is a private equity and real estate investment firm specializing in direct and fund of fund investments. It specializes in acquisitions, leveraged buyouts, management buyouts, credit special situations, growth equity, mature, mezzanine, distressed, turnaround, lower middle market and middle market investments.