Ieq Capital LLC Acquires New Holdings in Evergy Inc. $EVRG

Ieq Capital LLC bought a new stake in Evergy Inc. (NASDAQ:EVRG) in the 2nd quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The institutional investor bought 9,423 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $814,000.

Other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently made changes to their positions in the company. Geode Capital Management LLC lifted its holdings in Evergy by 1.7% during the fourth quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 6,447,150 shares of the company’s stock worth $465,684,000 after acquiring an additional 105,842 shares in the last quarter. Franklin Resources Inc. raised its position in shares of Evergy by 0.6% during the fourth quarter. Franklin Resources Inc. now owns 6,091,518 shares of the company’s stock worth $441,574,000 after purchasing an additional 33,457 shares during the period. Federated Hermes Inc. raised its position in shares of Evergy by 1.6% during the fourth quarter. Federated Hermes Inc. now owns 3,760,548 shares of the company’s stock worth $272,602,000 after purchasing an additional 57,814 shares during the period. Northern Trust Corp lifted its holdings in shares of Evergy by 10.6% during the 3rd quarter. Northern Trust Corp now owns 2,760,494 shares of the company’s stock valued at $209,853,000 after purchasing an additional 263,619 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Truist Financial Corp grew its position in shares of Evergy by 28.4% in the 4th quarter. Truist Financial Corp now owns 1,847,410 shares of the company’s stock valued at $133,919,000 after purchasing an additional 408,452 shares during the period. 87.24% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

EVRG has been the subject of a number of research reports. BTIG Research set a $97.00 target price on Evergy in a research note on Thursday, July 23rd. Barclays upped their price target on shares of Evergy from $89.00 to $94.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Tuesday, June 30th. BMO Capital Markets raised their price objective on shares of Evergy from $88.00 to $92.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Wednesday, July 22nd. Weiss Ratings reaffirmed a “buy (b)” rating on shares of Evergy in a research report on Friday, August 7th. Finally, Citigroup upped their target price on shares of Evergy from $95.00 to $97.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, July 24th. Eight equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and three have given a Hold rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $90.60.

Evergy Price Performance

NASDAQ:EVRG opened at $81.42 on Friday. The stock’s 50-day simple moving average is $84.64 and its 200 day simple moving average is $82.99. Evergy Inc. has a 52-week low of $70.42 and a 52-week high of $88.62. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.20, a quick ratio of 0.21 and a current ratio of 0.36. The company has a market cap of $18.77 billion, a P/E ratio of 20.66, a P/E/G ratio of 2.13 and a beta of 0.54.

Evergy (NASDAQ:EVRG) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, August 5th. The company reported $0.88 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.81 by $0.07. Evergy had a return on equity of 9.20% and a net margin of 15.19%.The firm had revenue of $1.50 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.36 billion. During the same period last year, the company earned $0.82 earnings per share. As a group, sell-side analysts forecast that Evergy Inc. will post 4.25 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Evergy Dividend Announcement

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, September 18th. Investors of record on Tuesday, August 18th will be issued a dividend of $0.695 per share. This represents a $2.78 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 3.4%. The ex-dividend date is Tuesday, August 18th. Evergy’s payout ratio is presently 70.56%.

Insider Buying and Selling at Evergy

In other Evergy news, Director Sandra Aj Lawrence sold 600 shares of the stock in a transaction on Tuesday, June 2nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $81.41, for a total value of $48,846.00. Following the completion of the sale, the director owned 680 shares in the company, valued at $55,358.80. This trade represents a 46.88% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available through this link. Also, EVP Charles A. Caisley sold 10,787 shares of Evergy stock in a transaction dated Monday, June 15th. The shares were sold at an average price of $83.46, for a total transaction of $900,283.02. Following the completion of the transaction, the executive vice president directly owned 37,789 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $3,153,869.94. This trade represents a 22.21% decrease in their position. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. The sale was made to cover tax withholding obligations related to the vesting of equity awards. Insiders have sold 11,587 shares of company stock worth $965,655 over the last ninety days. Insiders own 1.52% of the company’s stock.

Evergy Profile

Evergy, Inc is a regulated electric utility that generates, transmits and distributes electricity to residential, commercial and industrial customers primarily across Kansas and western Missouri. The company provides core utility services including retail electric delivery, grid operations, customer service and outage restoration, operating under state regulatory frameworks. Evergy serves a mix of urban and rural communities, including portions of the Kansas City metropolitan area and other population centers in its service territory.

The company’s business activities span power generation, system planning, transmission and distribution infrastructure, and customer-facing programs such as energy efficiency and demand-side management.