Mangrove Partners IM LLC Purchases New Shares in Hilltop Holdings Inc. $HTH

Mangrove Partners IM LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Hilltop Holdings Inc. (NYSE:HTH) in the 3rd quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The firm acquired 29,538 shares of the financial services provider’s stock, valued at approximately $987,000.

Other institutional investors and hedge funds have also made changes to their positions in the company. Smartleaf Asset Management LLC increased its holdings in shares of Hilltop by 42.7% in the 3rd quarter. Smartleaf Asset Management LLC now owns 1,334 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $45,000 after buying an additional 399 shares during the last quarter. GAMMA Investing LLC lifted its holdings in shares of Hilltop by 41.6% in the 3rd quarter. GAMMA Investing LLC now owns 1,983 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $66,000 after acquiring an additional 583 shares during the last quarter. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Public School Empls Retrmt SYS lifted its holdings in shares of Hilltop by 6.1% in the 2nd quarter. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Public School Empls Retrmt SYS now owns 11,695 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $355,000 after acquiring an additional 674 shares during the last quarter. Teacher Retirement System of Texas grew its position in Hilltop by 4.3% in the third quarter. Teacher Retirement System of Texas now owns 18,573 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $621,000 after acquiring an additional 761 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Victory Capital Management Inc. grew its position in Hilltop by 3.2% in the third quarter. Victory Capital Management Inc. now owns 26,780 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $895,000 after acquiring an additional 840 shares in the last quarter. 57.13% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Analyst Ratings Changes

HTH has been the topic of a number of recent research reports. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods upped their price objective on Hilltop from $34.00 to $39.00 and gave the company a “market perform” rating in a research report on Tuesday, February 3rd. Wall Street Zen raised Hilltop from a “sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Saturday. Zacks Research lowered Hilltop from a “strong-buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Wednesday, March 4th. Finally, Weiss Ratings restated a “buy (b)” rating on shares of Hilltop in a research report on Thursday, January 22nd. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a Buy rating and four have assigned a Hold rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, Hilltop currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $37.50.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Hilltop news, CEO Martin Bradley Winges sold 26,000 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, February 3rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $38.46, for a total transaction of $999,960.00. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer directly owned 65,831 shares in the company, valued at $2,531,860.26. This represents a 28.31% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. Also, major shareholder Gerald J. Ford sold 259,771 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Thursday, March 5th. The shares were sold at an average price of $37.98, for a total transaction of $9,866,102.58. Following the transaction, the insider directly owned 7,867 shares in the company, valued at $298,788.66. This trade represents a 97.06% decrease in their position. The SEC filing for this sale provides additional information. Insiders have sold a total of 294,796 shares of company stock worth $11,225,619 in the last three months. Corporate insiders own 29.90% of the company’s stock.

Hilltop Stock Down 0.4%

Shares of NYSE HTH opened at $34.74 on Friday. Hilltop Holdings Inc. has a twelve month low of $27.35 and a twelve month high of $40.41. The firm has a market cap of $2.07 billion, a PE ratio of 13.11 and a beta of 0.92. The business has a fifty day simple moving average of $37.11 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $34.99.

Hilltop (NYSE:HTH) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, January 29th. The financial services provider reported $0.69 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.46 by $0.23. The business had revenue of $217.40 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $300.15 million. Hilltop had a return on equity of 7.47% and a net margin of 10.19%.During the same quarter in the prior year, the company earned $0.55 EPS. On average, research analysts expect that Hilltop Holdings Inc. will post 1.51 earnings per share for the current year.

Hilltop Increases Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, February 27th. Investors of record on Friday, February 13th were paid a $0.20 dividend. This represents a $0.80 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 2.3%. This is a boost from Hilltop’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.18. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Friday, February 13th. Hilltop’s payout ratio is currently 30.19%.

Hilltop Company Profile

Hilltop Holdings, Inc (NYSE: HTH) is a Dallas, Texas–based financial holding company offering commercial banking, mortgage lending and capital markets services through its three primary subsidiaries: PlainsCapital Corporation, PrimeLending and HilltopSecurities. PlainsCapital provides deposit, lending and treasury management solutions to small and mid-sized businesses, professionals and individuals. PrimeLending specializes in home purchase and refinance loans, serving retail, wholesale and correspondent channels.