Pentair (NYSE:PNR) Raised to “Strong-Buy” at Baird R W

Baird R W upgraded shares of Pentair (NYSE:PNR) from a hold rating to a strong-buy rating in a research report released on Tuesday,Zacks.com reports.

A number of other equities research analysts have also recently commented on PNR. StockNews.com upgraded Pentair from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research note on Tuesday, March 11th. Robert W. Baird upgraded shares of Pentair from a “neutral” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $114.00 target price for the company in a research note on Tuesday. Citigroup dropped their target price on shares of Pentair from $126.00 to $119.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research report on Monday, January 13th. KeyCorp reaffirmed a “sector weight” rating and issued a $115.00 price target on shares of Pentair in a report on Monday, January 6th. Finally, Stifel Nicolaus dropped their price objective on shares of Pentair from $126.00 to $125.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a report on Friday, January 24th. Three equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twelve have assigned a buy rating and two have assigned a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $112.93.

Pentair Stock Performance

PNR stock opened at $91.11 on Tuesday. The firm has a 50-day simple moving average of $95.36 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $98.81. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.46, a quick ratio of 0.92 and a current ratio of 1.60. Pentair has a one year low of $72.63 and a one year high of $110.71. The firm has a market cap of $15.02 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 24.36, a PEG ratio of 1.87 and a beta of 1.23.

Pentair (NYSE:PNR) last announced its earnings results on Tuesday, February 4th. The industrial products company reported $1.08 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.02 by $0.06. The company had revenue of $972.90 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $970.95 million. Pentair had a net margin of 15.32% and a return on equity of 20.94%. Pentair’s revenue was down 1.2% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period last year, the firm earned $0.87 earnings per share. On average, equities analysts forecast that Pentair will post 4.77 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Pentair Dividend Announcement

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, May 2nd. Investors of record on Friday, April 18th will be given a dividend of $0.25 per share. This represents a $1.00 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.10%. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, April 17th. Pentair’s dividend payout ratio is currently 26.74%.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Pentair

Hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of the stock. 111 Capital acquired a new position in shares of Pentair in the 4th quarter valued at $618,000. Wealth Enhancement Advisory Services LLC raised its position in shares of Pentair by 7.6% in the fourth quarter. Wealth Enhancement Advisory Services LLC now owns 91,737 shares of the industrial products company’s stock worth $9,232,000 after acquiring an additional 6,504 shares during the period. Lansforsakringar Fondforvaltning AB publ purchased a new stake in shares of Pentair during the 4th quarter worth about $12,518,000. Smith Shellnut Wilson LLC ADV boosted its stake in shares of Pentair by 7.5% during the 4th quarter. Smith Shellnut Wilson LLC ADV now owns 4,201 shares of the industrial products company’s stock worth $423,000 after acquiring an additional 294 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Siemens Fonds Invest GmbH grew its position in shares of Pentair by 10.5% during the 4th quarter. Siemens Fonds Invest GmbH now owns 6,805 shares of the industrial products company’s stock valued at $685,000 after acquiring an additional 649 shares during the period. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 92.37% of the company’s stock.

Pentair Company Profile

Pentair plc provides various water solutions in the United States, Western Europe, China, Eastern Europe, Latin America, the Middle East, Southeast Asia, Australia, Canada, and Japan. The company operates through three segments: Flow, Water Solutions, and Pool. The Flow segment designs, manufactures, and sells fluid treatment and pump products and systems, including pressure vessels, gas recovery solutions, membrane bioreactors, wastewater reuse systems and advanced membrane filtration, separation systems, water disposal pumps, water supply pumps, fluid transfer pumps, turbine pumps, solid handling pumps, and agricultural spray nozzles for fluid delivery, ion exchange, desalination, food and beverage, separation technologies in the oil and gas industry, residential and municipal wells, water treatment, wastewater solids handling, pressure boosting, circulation and transfer, fire suppression, flood control, agricultural irrigation, and crop spray in residential, commercial, and industrial markets.