Aramark (NYSE:ARMK) Sees Significant Increase in Short Interest

Aramark (NYSE:ARMK) saw a large growth in short interest in the month of March. As of March 31st, there was short interest totalling 5,840,000 shares, a growth of 14.5% from the March 15th total of 5,100,000 shares. Based on an average daily trading volume, of 2,490,000 shares, the short-interest ratio is currently 2.3 days.

Institutional Trading of Aramark

Several institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in ARMK. BlackRock Inc. boosted its position in shares of Aramark by 102.9% during the 1st quarter. BlackRock Inc. now owns 24,774,397 shares of the company’s stock valued at $886,923,000 after acquiring an additional 12,562,434 shares in the last quarter. Morgan Stanley boosted its position in Aramark by 1,042.8% in the fourth quarter. Morgan Stanley now owns 12,850,218 shares of the company’s stock valued at $531,228,000 after buying an additional 11,725,727 shares in the last quarter. State Street Corp boosted its position in Aramark by 63.3% in the first quarter. State Street Corp now owns 7,929,211 shares of the company’s stock valued at $283,866,000 after buying an additional 3,074,389 shares in the last quarter. Public Sector Pension Investment Board acquired a new position in Aramark in the fourth quarter valued at about $75,477,000. Finally, Norges Bank acquired a new position in Aramark in the fourth quarter valued at about $68,309,000.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

ARMK has been the subject of a number of research reports. Morgan Stanley lifted their target price on shares of Aramark from $28.00 to $30.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Wednesday, February 7th. The Goldman Sachs Group initiated coverage on shares of Aramark in a research note on Wednesday, January 17th. They set a “buy” rating and a $33.00 target price for the company. Royal Bank of Canada reissued a “sector perform” rating and set a $33.00 target price on shares of Aramark in a research note on Wednesday, February 7th. Finally, Truist Financial raised their price target on shares of Aramark from $35.00 to $37.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Wednesday, March 20th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, three have assigned a hold rating and ten have assigned a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $33.04.

Aramark Stock Performance

NYSE ARMK traded down $0.28 during midday trading on Tuesday, hitting $31.19. The company had a trading volume of 1,537,691 shares, compared to its average volume of 2,483,609. The company has a quick ratio of 1.12, a current ratio of 1.27 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 2.08. The stock has a market cap of $8.19 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 13.05, a P/E/G ratio of 1.27 and a beta of 1.48. The firm has a fifty day simple moving average of $31.26 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $28.92. Aramark has a fifty-two week low of $23.95 and a fifty-two week high of $33.04.

Aramark (NYSE:ARMK) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, February 6th. The company reported $0.41 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.36 by $0.05. The company had revenue of $4.41 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $4.29 billion. Aramark had a net margin of 3.37% and a return on equity of 13.45%. The business’s quarterly revenue was up 12.6% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period last year, the business posted $0.41 EPS. Equities analysts forecast that Aramark will post 1.56 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Aramark Announces Dividend

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, February 28th. Shareholders of record on Wednesday, February 14th were given a $0.095 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Tuesday, February 13th. This represents a $0.38 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.22%. Aramark’s dividend payout ratio is 15.90%.

About Aramark

Aramark provides food and facilities services to education, healthcare, business and industry, sports, leisure, and corrections clients in the United States and internationally. It operates through two segments, Food and Support Services United States, and Food and Support Services International. The company offers food-related managed services, including dining, catering, food service management, and convenience-oriented retail services; non-clinical food and food-related support services, such as patient food and nutrition, retail food, environmental services, and procurement services; and plant operations and maintenance, custodial/housekeeping, energy management, grounds keeping, and capital project management services.