State Board of Administration of Florida Retirement System Increases Holdings in Smurfit Westrock PLC $SW

State Board of Administration of Florida Retirement System increased its position in shares of Smurfit Westrock PLC (NYSE:SW) by 1.2% in the 2nd quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the SEC. The fund owned 442,093 shares of the company’s stock after purchasing an additional 5,260 shares during the quarter. State Board of Administration of Florida Retirement System’s holdings in Smurfit Westrock were worth $19,076,000 as of its most recent filing with the SEC.

Several other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also made changes to their positions in SW. Nuveen LLC acquired a new stake in Smurfit Westrock in the 1st quarter valued at about $1,051,299,000. Ruffer LLP purchased a new stake in shares of Smurfit Westrock in the second quarter valued at about $196,095,000. Orbis Allan Gray Ltd lifted its holdings in shares of Smurfit Westrock by 74.8% in the first quarter. Orbis Allan Gray Ltd now owns 10,114,213 shares of the company’s stock valued at $455,746,000 after purchasing an additional 4,329,653 shares in the last quarter. JPMorgan Chase & Co. grew its position in shares of Smurfit Westrock by 39.3% in the first quarter. JPMorgan Chase & Co. now owns 6,100,067 shares of the company’s stock valued at $274,869,000 after purchasing an additional 1,721,889 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Bank of New York Mellon Corp increased its stake in shares of Smurfit Westrock by 19.7% during the 2nd quarter. Bank of New York Mellon Corp now owns 8,500,852 shares of the company’s stock worth $366,812,000 after purchasing an additional 1,399,464 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 83.38% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of research firms recently issued reports on SW. Morgan Stanley reiterated an “overweight” rating and set a $52.00 target price on shares of Smurfit Westrock in a report on Monday, November 3rd. Royal Bank Of Canada reduced their price objective on Smurfit Westrock from $55.00 to $54.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday, October 30th. Weiss Ratings reaffirmed a “hold (c)” rating on shares of Smurfit Westrock in a research note on Tuesday, November 25th. UBS Group started coverage on shares of Smurfit Westrock in a research note on Monday, September 15th. They issued a “buy” rating and a $60.00 target price for the company. Finally, Seaport Res Ptn raised shares of Smurfit Westrock from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Monday, October 6th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, ten have issued a Buy rating, one has assigned a Hold rating and one has given a Sell rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Smurfit Westrock has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $55.30.

Smurfit Westrock Price Performance

SW opened at $35.69 on Monday. Smurfit Westrock PLC has a 1 year low of $32.73 and a 1 year high of $56.05. The company’s 50 day simple moving average is $39.08 and its 200 day simple moving average is $42.86. The stock has a market capitalization of $18.64 billion, a PE ratio of 24.96 and a beta of 1.11. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.72, a quick ratio of 0.95 and a current ratio of 1.48.

Smurfit Westrock (NYSE:SW) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, October 29th. The company reported $0.58 earnings per share for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.68 by ($0.10). Smurfit Westrock had a return on equity of 6.21% and a net margin of 2.40%.The company had revenue of $8 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $7.89 billion. The firm’s quarterly revenue was up 4.3% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, sell-side analysts expect that Smurfit Westrock PLC will post 3.25 EPS for the current year.

Smurfit Westrock Dividend Announcement

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, December 18th. Shareholders of record on Friday, November 14th will be given a dividend of $0.4308 per share. This represents a $1.72 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 4.8%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, November 14th. Smurfit Westrock’s payout ratio is 120.28%.

Smurfit Westrock Profile

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.