Legal & General Group Plc Purchases New Stake in Franco-Nevada Corporation $FNV

Legal & General Group Plc acquired a new position in shares of Franco-Nevada Corporation (NYSE:FNV) (TSE:FNV) during the second quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The firm acquired 929,497 shares of the basic materials company’s stock, valued at approximately $193,879,000.

A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently added to or reduced their stakes in FNV. Vanguard Group Inc. grew its holdings in Franco-Nevada by 1.4% in the 4th quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 8,330,234 shares of the basic materials company’s stock valued at $1,726,741,000 after buying an additional 113,916 shares in the last quarter. Van ECK Associates Corp grew its holdings in shares of Franco-Nevada by 12.8% in the fourth quarter. Van ECK Associates Corp now owns 7,441,133 shares of the basic materials company’s stock valued at $1,542,402,000 after purchasing an additional 842,132 shares during the period. First Eagle Investment Management LLC increased its position in Franco-Nevada by 26.5% during the fourth quarter. First Eagle Investment Management LLC now owns 5,123,444 shares of the basic materials company’s stock worth $1,062,037,000 after purchasing an additional 1,074,257 shares during the last quarter. EdgePoint Investment Group Inc. increased its position in Franco-Nevada by 3.3% during the first quarter. EdgePoint Investment Group Inc. now owns 3,461,224 shares of the basic materials company’s stock worth $857,196,000 after purchasing an additional 110,222 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Royal Bank of Canada raised its stake in Franco-Nevada by 10.2% during the fourth quarter. Royal Bank of Canada now owns 2,808,645 shares of the basic materials company’s stock worth $582,177,000 after purchasing an additional 260,793 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 77.06% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of analysts have recently issued reports on FNV shares. HC Wainwright restated a “buy” rating and set a $305.00 price target on shares of Franco-Nevada in a report on Wednesday, May 13th. Wall Street Zen lowered Franco-Nevada from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Monday, June 1st. Bank of America cut their target price on Franco-Nevada from $276.00 to $238.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a research note on Thursday, July 9th. Jefferies Financial Group reduced their target price on Franco-Nevada from $258.00 to $245.00 and set a “hold” rating on the stock in a research report on Monday, July 6th. Finally, National Bank Financial raised Franco-Nevada from a “sector perform” rating to an “outperform” rating in a research note on Wednesday, May 13th. Eleven research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and four have assigned a Hold rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $273.40.

Franco-Nevada Stock Performance

Shares of FNV stock opened at $267.28 on Thursday. The stock has a market capitalization of $51.55 billion, a P/E ratio of 34.94, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.51 and a beta of 0.35. The company has a 50 day moving average price of $222.16 and a 200 day moving average price of $235.82. Franco-Nevada Corporation has a fifty-two week low of $181.50 and a fifty-two week high of $285.67.

Franco-Nevada (NYSE:FNV) (TSE:FNV) last released its earnings results on Tuesday, August 11th. The basic materials company reported $1.81 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.95 by ($0.14). The business had revenue of $580.90 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $616.66 million. Franco-Nevada had a return on equity of 18.58% and a net margin of 63.79%.Franco-Nevada’s quarterly revenue was up 57.3% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter last year, the company earned $1.24 earnings per share. On average, research analysts forecast that Franco-Nevada Corporation will post 7.54 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Franco-Nevada Announces Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, September 24th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, September 10th will be given a dividend of $0.44 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, September 10th. This represents a $1.76 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.7%. Franco-Nevada’s dividend payout ratio is currently 23.01%.

Franco-Nevada Profile

Franco-Nevada Corporation is a Toronto-based royalty and streaming company that specializes in securing and managing long-term interests in mining properties. The firm focuses primarily on precious metals, particularly gold, while also holding interests related to silver, copper, platinum-group metals and select base metals. Rather than operating mines directly, Franco-Nevada acquires royalty and streaming agreements that entitle it to a percentage of production or revenue from producing and developing assets in exchange for upfront or staged financing.

The company’s business model centers on providing capital to mining companies in return for a sustained share of production or metal revenue, which can reduce exposure to operating and capital cost risks typical of mine operators.