BlackRock Inc. Buys New Position in Interface, Inc. $TILE

BlackRock Inc. purchased a new position in shares of Interface, Inc. (NASDAQ:TILE) during the 2nd quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The institutional investor purchased 9,432,349 shares of the textile maker’s stock, valued at approximately $338,055,000. BlackRock Inc. owned approximately 0.16% of Interface at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other hedge funds have also modified their holdings of the company. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP increased its holdings in shares of Interface by 1.4% in the 4th quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 2,689,857 shares of the textile maker’s stock valued at $75,105,000 after acquiring an additional 36,530 shares during the period. State Street Corp increased its stake in Interface by 0.7% in the fourth quarter. State Street Corp now owns 2,192,472 shares of the textile maker’s stock valued at $61,214,000 after purchasing an additional 14,764 shares during the period. Fuller & Thaler Asset Management Inc. increased its stake in Interface by 133.9% in the fourth quarter. Fuller & Thaler Asset Management Inc. now owns 2,008,260 shares of the textile maker’s stock valued at $56,071,000 after purchasing an additional 1,149,733 shares during the period. GW&K Investment Management LLC raised its holdings in shares of Interface by 12.7% in the fourth quarter. GW&K Investment Management LLC now owns 993,413 shares of the textile maker’s stock valued at $27,736,000 after buying an additional 111,564 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. grew its holdings in shares of Interface by 4.0% during the fourth quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 870,156 shares of the textile maker’s stock worth $24,295,000 after buying an additional 33,650 shares during the last quarter. 98.34% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

TILE has been the subject of a number of recent research reports. Barrington Research increased their price objective on Interface from $36.00 to $45.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research report on Monday, August 10th. Wall Street Zen lowered shares of Interface from a “strong-buy” rating to a “buy” rating in a research note on Saturday, August 15th. Zacks Research cut shares of Interface from a “strong-buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Tuesday, July 28th. Weiss Ratings upgraded shares of Interface from a “buy (b-)” rating to a “buy (b)” rating in a research report on Wednesday, August 12th. Finally, Benchmark assumed coverage on Interface in a research report on Tuesday, May 19th. They set a “buy” rating and a $36.00 target price on the stock. Three equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and one has assigned a Hold rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $40.50.

Interface Trading Down 0.6%

Shares of TILE opened at $38.70 on Thursday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.29, a current ratio of 2.53 and a quick ratio of 1.35. Interface, Inc. has a 1-year low of $24.40 and a 1-year high of $40.50. The stock has a market cap of $2.25 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 15.67, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.10 and a beta of 1.90. The firm has a 50 day simple moving average of $35.18 and a 200-day simple moving average of $31.07.

Interface (NASDAQ:TILE) last announced its earnings results on Friday, August 7th. The textile maker reported $0.88 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.64 by $0.24. Interface had a return on equity of 21.77% and a net margin of 10.10%.The firm had revenue of $395.70 million for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $391.22 million. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm earned $0.60 EPS. Interface’s quarterly revenue was up 5.4% on a year-over-year basis. Equities analysts forecast that Interface, Inc. will post 2.36 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Interface Announces Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, September 18th. Investors of record on Friday, September 4th will be paid a $0.03 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, September 4th. This represents a $0.12 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.3%. Interface’s payout ratio is presently 4.86%.

Insider Transactions at Interface

In other Interface news, CEO Laurel Hurd sold 7,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, August 24th. The shares were sold at an average price of $39.09, for a total value of $273,630.00. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer directly owned 506,978 shares in the company, valued at approximately $19,817,770.02. This represents a 1.36% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this link. Company insiders own 2.47% of the company’s stock.

Interface Company Profile

Interface, Inc (NASDAQ: TILE) is a global manufacturer of modular flooring and resilient commercial flooring solutions. The company specializes in carpet tiles, luxury vinyl tile (LVT) and other environmentally responsible hard-surface products designed for use in corporate, education, healthcare, hospitality and retail environments. Interface’s portfolio also includes broadloom carpet, rubber flooring and acoustic underlays, all engineered to meet performance, design and sustainability requirements in modern interior spaces.

Founded in 1973 by Ray C.