Thurston Springer Miller Herd & Titak Inc. Has $436,000 Stake in MSA Safety Incorporated (NYSE:MSA)

Thurston Springer Miller Herd & Titak Inc. lifted its position in shares of MSA Safety Incorporated (NYSE:MSA) by 26.0% during the third quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The firm owned 2,459 shares of the industrial products company’s stock after buying an additional 508 shares during the quarter. Thurston Springer Miller Herd & Titak Inc.’s holdings in MSA Safety were worth $436,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Other hedge funds have also added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. lifted its holdings in shares of MSA Safety by 41.7% during the fourth quarter. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. now owns 293,205 shares of the industrial products company’s stock worth $49,502,000 after buying an additional 86,225 shares in the last quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. boosted its holdings in MSA Safety by 0.6% in the 4th quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 3,826,135 shares of the industrial products company’s stock valued at $645,966,000 after purchasing an additional 23,526 shares during the period. Quadrature Capital Ltd grew its position in shares of MSA Safety by 332.6% during the 4th quarter. Quadrature Capital Ltd now owns 9,492 shares of the industrial products company’s stock worth $1,603,000 after purchasing an additional 7,298 shares in the last quarter. Kapitalo Investimentos Ltda bought a new position in shares of MSA Safety during the fourth quarter worth approximately $142,000. Finally, Moody National Bank Trust Division acquired a new stake in shares of MSA Safety in the first quarter valued at approximately $240,000. 92.51% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of research firms have commented on MSA. William Blair upgraded MSA Safety to a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Tuesday, July 16th. Stifel Nicolaus raised their price target on MSA Safety from $200.00 to $215.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, July 26th.

Insider Transactions at MSA Safety

In related news, CEO Nishan J. Vartanian sold 3,945 shares of MSA Safety stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, July 31st. The shares were sold at an average price of $189.00, for a total transaction of $745,605.00. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 31,953 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $6,039,117. The trade was a 0.00 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available through this hyperlink. Company insiders own 6.20% of the company’s stock.

MSA Safety Stock Performance

Shares of NYSE:MSA opened at $173.45 on Tuesday. MSA Safety Incorporated has a 1 year low of $147.35 and a 1 year high of $200.60. The stock has a market capitalization of $6.83 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 25.70 and a beta of 0.99. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.55, a current ratio of 2.45 and a quick ratio of 1.54. The company’s 50 day simple moving average is $176.33 and its 200 day simple moving average is $183.13.

MSA Safety (NYSE:MSA) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, July 24th. The industrial products company reported $2.01 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.97 by $0.04. MSA Safety had a return on equity of 30.64% and a net margin of 14.97%. The company had revenue of $462.46 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $461.30 million. As a group, research analysts predict that MSA Safety Incorporated will post 7.75 EPS for the current fiscal year.

MSA Safety Announces Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Tuesday, September 10th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, August 15th were paid a dividend of $0.51 per share. This represents a $2.04 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.18%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, August 15th. MSA Safety’s payout ratio is 30.22%.

MSA Safety Company Profile

MSA Safety Incorporated develops, manufactures, and supplies safety products and technology solutions that protect people and facility infrastructures in the fire service, energy, utility, construction, and industrial manufacturing applications, as well as heating, ventilation, air conditioning, and refrigeration industries worldwide.