Hendley & Co. Inc. Acquires Shares of 13,207 Reliance, Inc. (NYSE:RS)

Hendley & Co. Inc. bought a new position in shares of Reliance, Inc. (NYSE:RS) during the 4th quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The firm bought 13,207 shares of the industrial products company’s stock, valued at approximately $3,556,000.

Other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently made changes to their positions in the company. Edge Capital Group LLC acquired a new position in Reliance in the fourth quarter valued at about $46,979,000. Y Intercept Hong Kong Ltd raised its position in shares of Reliance by 226.0% in the 4th quarter. Y Intercept Hong Kong Ltd now owns 12,390 shares of the industrial products company’s stock valued at $3,336,000 after buying an additional 8,589 shares in the last quarter. Parcion Private Wealth LLC lifted its holdings in shares of Reliance by 7.6% during the 4th quarter. Parcion Private Wealth LLC now owns 982 shares of the industrial products company’s stock worth $264,000 after acquiring an additional 69 shares during the period. Venturi Wealth Management LLC boosted its position in shares of Reliance by 10.8% during the 4th quarter. Venturi Wealth Management LLC now owns 4,853 shares of the industrial products company’s stock worth $1,307,000 after acquiring an additional 474 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Empower Advisory Group LLC increased its stake in Reliance by 0.7% in the fourth quarter. Empower Advisory Group LLC now owns 48,862 shares of the industrial products company’s stock valued at $13,157,000 after acquiring an additional 345 shares during the last quarter. 79.26% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several equities research analysts have weighed in on RS shares. Wolfe Research upgraded Reliance from an “underperform” rating to a “peer perform” rating in a research note on Wednesday, January 8th. The Goldman Sachs Group started coverage on Reliance in a research report on Monday, December 2nd. They set a “neutral” rating and a $341.00 price objective for the company. Finally, KeyCorp lifted their target price on Reliance from $321.00 to $327.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Monday. Five equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and two have given a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company currently has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $329.17.

Reliance Trading Down 0.5 %

NYSE RS opened at $299.55 on Tuesday. The company has a market cap of $16.21 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 19.40 and a beta of 0.90. Reliance, Inc. has a twelve month low of $256.98 and a twelve month high of $342.20. The company has a quick ratio of 1.58, a current ratio of 3.21 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.10. The business’s fifty day moving average is $282.16 and its 200 day moving average is $289.46.

Reliance (NYSE:RS) last released its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, February 19th. The industrial products company reported $2.22 earnings per share for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $2.74 by ($0.52). Reliance had a return on equity of 11.87% and a net margin of 6.33%. The firm had revenue of $3.13 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $3.04 billion. As a group, sell-side analysts expect that Reliance, Inc. will post 16.98 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Reliance Increases Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, March 21st. Shareholders of record on Friday, March 7th will be given a $1.20 dividend. This is a boost from Reliance’s previous quarterly dividend of $1.10. This represents a $4.80 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.60%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, March 7th. Reliance’s dividend payout ratio is 31.09%.

Insider Activity

In other news, CEO Karla R. Lewis sold 3,892 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Monday, December 2nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $323.90, for a total value of $1,260,618.80. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 85,117 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $27,569,396.30. This represents a 4.37 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is accessible through the SEC website. Insiders own 0.69% of the company’s stock.

About Reliance

Reliance, Inc operates as a diversified metal solutions provider and the metals service center company in the United States, Canada, and internationally. The company distributes a line of approximately 100,000 metal products, including alloy, aluminum, brass, copper, carbon steel, stainless steel, titanium, and specialty steel products; and provides metals processing services to general manufacturing, non-residential construction, transportation, aerospace, energy, electronics and semiconductor fabrication, and heavy industries.