Boston Partners Grows Stake in Garmin Ltd. (NYSE:GRMN)

Boston Partners lifted its stake in shares of Garmin Ltd. (NYSE:GRMN) by 4.3% in the first quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 1,416,130 shares of the scientific and technical instruments company’s stock after purchasing an additional 58,343 shares during the period. Boston Partners owned about 0.74% of Garmin worth $210,799,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission.

A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds have also modified their holdings of the stock. Cetera Advisors LLC increased its stake in shares of Garmin by 77.0% during the first quarter. Cetera Advisors LLC now owns 4,755 shares of the scientific and technical instruments company’s stock worth $708,000 after purchasing an additional 2,068 shares in the last quarter. Cetera Investment Advisers increased its stake in shares of Garmin by 51.7% during the first quarter. Cetera Investment Advisers now owns 28,395 shares of the scientific and technical instruments company’s stock worth $4,227,000 after purchasing an additional 9,681 shares in the last quarter. PGGM Investments increased its stake in shares of Garmin by 2.4% during the first quarter. PGGM Investments now owns 30,125 shares of the scientific and technical instruments company’s stock worth $4,485,000 after purchasing an additional 713 shares in the last quarter. Swedbank AB purchased a new stake in shares of Garmin during the first quarter worth about $13,670,000. Finally, iA Global Asset Management Inc. increased its stake in shares of Garmin by 328.3% during the first quarter. iA Global Asset Management Inc. now owns 9,894 shares of the scientific and technical instruments company’s stock worth $1,473,000 after purchasing an additional 7,584 shares in the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 73.41% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several analysts recently issued reports on GRMN shares. Bank of America cut shares of Garmin from a “neutral” rating to an “underperform” rating and dropped their price objective for the company from $165.00 to $150.00 in a research note on Wednesday, May 22nd. Barclays upped their price objective on shares of Garmin from $140.00 to $166.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Thursday, May 2nd. StockNews.com raised shares of Garmin from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research note on Thursday. JPMorgan Chase & Co. upped their price objective on shares of Garmin from $155.00 to $175.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Thursday, May 2nd. Finally, Tigress Financial upped their price objective on shares of Garmin from $175.00 to $210.00 and gave the company a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Tuesday, May 14th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, four have assigned a hold rating, one has issued a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, Garmin presently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $156.83.

Insider Transactions at Garmin

In other news, CFO Douglas G. Boessen sold 2,350 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, June 10th. The shares were sold at an average price of $161.63, for a total value of $379,830.50. Following the transaction, the chief financial officer now directly owns 28,010 shares in the company, valued at approximately $4,527,256.30. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is accessible through this hyperlink. In other news, CFO Douglas G. Boessen sold 2,350 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, June 10th. The shares were sold at an average price of $161.63, for a total value of $379,830.50. Following the transaction, the chief financial officer now directly owns 28,010 shares in the company, valued at approximately $4,527,256.30. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Also, EVP Patrick Desbois sold 4,126 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, June 4th. The stock was sold at an average price of $163.52, for a total transaction of $674,683.52. Following the sale, the executive vice president now owns 58,412 shares in the company, valued at $9,551,530.24. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Company insiders own 19.54% of the company’s stock.

Garmin Stock Down 1.5 %

Shares of Garmin stock traded down $2.54 during mid-day trading on Friday, hitting $168.52. The stock had a trading volume of 943,885 shares, compared to its average volume of 822,842. The firm has a 50-day moving average of $165.54 and a two-hundred day moving average of $150.48. Garmin Ltd. has a 12-month low of $99.61 and a 12-month high of $179.76. The firm has a market cap of $32.39 billion, a P/E ratio of 23.77, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.55 and a beta of 0.98.

Garmin (NYSE:GRMN) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, July 31st. The scientific and technical instruments company reported $1.58 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.40 by $0.18. Garmin had a net margin of 24.36% and a return on equity of 17.09%. The business had revenue of $1.51 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $1.42 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company posted $1.45 EPS. The business’s revenue for the quarter was up 14.3% on a year-over-year basis. Sell-side analysts expect that Garmin Ltd. will post 6 earnings per share for the current year.

Garmin Dividend Announcement

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, March 28th. Stockholders of record on Friday, March 14th will be issued a $0.75 dividend. The ex-dividend date is Friday, March 14th. This represents a $3.00 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.78%. Garmin’s dividend payout ratio is currently 42.31%.

Garmin Company Profile

Garmin Ltd. designs, develops, manufactures, markets, and distributes a range of wireless devices worldwide. Its Fitness segment offers running and multi-sport watches; cycling products; smartwatch devices; scales and monitors; and fitness accessories. This segment also provides Garmin Connect and Garmin Connect Mobile, which are web and mobile platforms where users can track and analyze their fitness, activities and workouts, and wellness data; and Connect IQ, an application development platform.