Smurfit Westrock PLC $SW Shares Sold by Ameriprise Financial Inc.

Ameriprise Financial Inc. cut its holdings in shares of Smurfit Westrock PLC (NYSE:SW) by 6.4% in the 1st quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The institutional investor owned 8,428,762 shares of the company’s stock after selling 574,718 shares during the period. Ameriprise Financial Inc.’s holdings in Smurfit Westrock were worth $379,800,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Several other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also made changes to their positions in SW. Bank Pictet & Cie Europe AG boosted its position in shares of Smurfit Westrock by 40.6% during the fourth quarter. Bank Pictet & Cie Europe AG now owns 42,104 shares of the company’s stock worth $2,268,000 after buying an additional 12,166 shares during the period. Mariner LLC boosted its position in shares of Smurfit Westrock by 37.4% during the fourth quarter. Mariner LLC now owns 28,783 shares of the company’s stock worth $1,550,000 after buying an additional 7,828 shares during the period. Jump Financial LLC acquired a new position in shares of Smurfit Westrock during the fourth quarter worth approximately $626,000. NewEdge Advisors LLC boosted its position in shares of Smurfit Westrock by 202.9% during the fourth quarter. NewEdge Advisors LLC now owns 4,538 shares of the company’s stock worth $244,000 after buying an additional 3,040 shares during the period. Finally, Dimensional Fund Advisors LP boosted its position in shares of Smurfit Westrock by 32.7% during the fourth quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 3,551,357 shares of the company’s stock worth $191,269,000 after buying an additional 874,748 shares during the period. 83.38% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

SW has been the subject of several analyst reports. Jefferies Financial Group upgraded Smurfit Westrock from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and boosted their price objective for the stock from $44.00 to $55.00 in a research report on Monday, June 16th. Royal Bank Of Canada dropped their target price on Smurfit Westrock from $57.00 to $56.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a report on Friday, May 2nd. Wells Fargo & Company boosted their target price on Smurfit Westrock from $45.00 to $46.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a report on Thursday, July 31st. Morgan Stanley boosted their target price on Smurfit Westrock from $51.00 to $53.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Tuesday, July 8th. Finally, Barclays dropped their target price on Smurfit Westrock from $64.00 to $63.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a report on Monday, June 30th. Nine analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and one has assigned a Hold rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $58.00.

Smurfit Westrock Price Performance

NYSE SW opened at $43.6520 on Friday. The stock has a market capitalization of $22.79 billion, a P/E ratio of 66.14 and a beta of 1.06. Smurfit Westrock PLC has a 1 year low of $37.01 and a 1 year high of $56.99. The business’s fifty day moving average is $44.92 and its two-hundred day moving average is $45.29. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.73, a quick ratio of 0.95 and a current ratio of 1.45.

Smurfit Westrock (NYSE:SW) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, July 30th. The company reported $0.45 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $0.57 by ($0.12). The company had revenue of $7.94 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $7.88 billion. Smurfit Westrock had a net margin of 1.14% and a return on equity of 5.90%. The firm’s quarterly revenue was up 167.4% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, research analysts forecast that Smurfit Westrock PLC will post 3.25 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Smurfit Westrock Announces Dividend

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, September 18th. Shareholders of record on Friday, August 15th will be issued a $0.4308 dividend. This represents a $1.72 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 3.9%. Smurfit Westrock’s dividend payout ratio is currently 260.61%.

About Smurfit Westrock

Smurfit Westrock Plc, together with its subsidiaries, manufactures, distributes, and sells containerboard, corrugated containers, and other paper-based packaging products in Ireland and internationally. The company produces containerboard that it converts into corrugated containers or sells to third parties, as well as produces other types of paper, such as consumer packaging board, sack paper, graphic paper, solid board and graphic board, and other paper-based packaging products, such as consumer packaging, solid board packaging, paper sacks, and other packaging products, including bag-in-box.