River Road Asset Management LLC Cuts Stock Holdings in NorthWestern Corporation $NWE

River Road Asset Management LLC reduced its stake in NorthWestern Corporation (NASDAQ:NWE) by 44.8% during the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the SEC. The fund owned 1,263,967 shares of the company’s stock after selling 1,027,523 shares during the period. River Road Asset Management LLC owned approximately 2.06% of NorthWestern worth $81,576,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Other hedge funds have also bought and sold shares of the company. Signaturefd LLC grew its position in shares of NorthWestern by 28.5% during the fourth quarter. Signaturefd LLC now owns 879 shares of the company’s stock valued at $57,000 after purchasing an additional 195 shares in the last quarter. Strs Ohio lifted its position in shares of NorthWestern by 1.1% in the fourth quarter. Strs Ohio now owns 18,800 shares of the company’s stock worth $1,213,000 after buying an additional 200 shares in the last quarter. Daiwa Securities Group Inc. lifted its position in shares of NorthWestern by 34.3% in the second quarter. Daiwa Securities Group Inc. now owns 845 shares of the company’s stock worth $43,000 after buying an additional 216 shares in the last quarter. Advisory Services Network LLC boosted its stake in NorthWestern by 3.4% during the third quarter. Advisory Services Network LLC now owns 6,763 shares of the company’s stock valued at $396,000 after buying an additional 224 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Parallel Advisors LLC boosted its stake in NorthWestern by 31.1% during the third quarter. Parallel Advisors LLC now owns 1,074 shares of the company’s stock valued at $63,000 after buying an additional 255 shares during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 96.07% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of research firms have issued reports on NWE. LADENBURG THALM/SH SH raised NorthWestern from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and lifted their price objective for the stock from $56.00 to $75.50 in a research note on Wednesday, April 1st. JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised their target price on shares of NorthWestern from $64.00 to $67.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a report on Tuesday, April 21st. Barclays boosted their price target on shares of NorthWestern from $62.00 to $75.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Monday, April 20th. Wall Street Zen raised shares of NorthWestern to a “hold” rating in a research note on Saturday, April 25th. Finally, Weiss Ratings reiterated a “buy (b-)” rating on shares of NorthWestern in a research report on Tuesday, May 26th. Three equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, two have issued a Hold rating and one has issued a Sell rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $68.30.

NorthWestern Trading Up 0.9%

Shares of NASDAQ NWE opened at $69.88 on Friday. NorthWestern Corporation has a 1-year low of $50.54 and a 1-year high of $75.18. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.10, a current ratio of 0.70 and a quick ratio of 0.52. The business’s 50 day moving average is $70.97 and its two-hundred day moving average is $68.52. The stock has a market capitalization of $4.30 billion, a P/E ratio of 25.69, a PEG ratio of 3.66 and a beta of 0.34.

NorthWestern (NASDAQ:NWE) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, April 29th. The company reported $1.31 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.29 by $0.02. The business had revenue of $516.60 million during the quarter. NorthWestern had a return on equity of 7.80% and a net margin of 10.21%.NorthWestern’s revenue for the quarter was up 6.6% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the business earned $1.22 earnings per share. As a group, research analysts expect that NorthWestern Corporation will post 3.75 EPS for the current year.

NorthWestern Announces Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Tuesday, June 30th. Shareholders of record on Monday, June 15th will be paid a dividend of $0.67 per share. This represents a $2.68 annualized dividend and a yield of 3.8%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Monday, June 15th. NorthWestern’s payout ratio is presently 98.53%.

NorthWestern Company Profile

NorthWestern Corporation (NASDAQ: NWE) is a regulated energy company that delivers electricity and natural gas to residential, commercial and industrial customers. Through its Electric Operations and Gas Operations segments, the company operates an extensive network of distribution lines, substations and pipelines. NorthWestern’s services encompass the delivery of power sourced from regional transmission systems and the procurement, storage and distribution of natural gas to end users.

Electric delivery services include the management of distribution infrastructure, customer metering and system reliability programs.