Tandem Investment Advisors Inc. Raises Stake in Verisk Analytics, Inc. (NASDAQ:VRSK)

Tandem Investment Advisors Inc. increased its holdings in Verisk Analytics, Inc. (NASDAQ:VRSK) by 3.9% during the 4th quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 142,565 shares of the business services provider’s stock after buying an additional 5,322 shares during the period. Tandem Investment Advisors Inc.’s holdings in Verisk Analytics were worth $34,053,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Several other institutional investors and hedge funds have also made changes to their positions in VRSK. Morgan Stanley raised its stake in Verisk Analytics by 248.2% in the 4th quarter. Morgan Stanley now owns 3,765,708 shares of the business services provider’s stock valued at $664,346,000 after purchasing an additional 2,684,234 shares during the last quarter. Citigroup Inc. raised its stake in Verisk Analytics by 1,404.8% in the 3rd quarter. Citigroup Inc. now owns 1,992,727 shares of the business services provider’s stock valued at $470,762,000 after purchasing an additional 1,860,298 shares during the last quarter. Norges Bank acquired a new position in Verisk Analytics in the 4th quarter valued at about $268,659,000. Massachusetts Financial Services Co. MA grew its holdings in shares of Verisk Analytics by 5.5% during the 3rd quarter. Massachusetts Financial Services Co. MA now owns 7,523,191 shares of the business services provider’s stock worth $1,777,279,000 after purchasing an additional 392,945 shares during the period. Finally, Lazard Asset Management LLC grew its holdings in shares of Verisk Analytics by 40.4% during the 4th quarter. Lazard Asset Management LLC now owns 1,205,157 shares of the business services provider’s stock worth $212,612,000 after purchasing an additional 346,785 shares during the period. 90.00% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of brokerages have recently issued reports on VRSK. Evercore ISI reiterated an “in-line” rating and set a $250.00 target price on shares of Verisk Analytics in a report on Tuesday, March 26th. Bank of America cut Verisk Analytics from a “buy” rating to a “neutral” rating and decreased their target price for the stock from $270.00 to $260.00 in a report on Monday, January 8th. Nine equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and six have assigned a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $252.00.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, CAO David J. Grover sold 6,481 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, March 27th. The shares were sold at an average price of $233.06, for a total value of $1,510,461.86. Following the transaction, the chief accounting officer now directly owns 12,140 shares in the company, valued at approximately $2,829,348.40. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available at this link. In other news, CAO David J. Grover sold 6,481 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, March 27th. The shares were sold at an average price of $233.06, for a total value of $1,510,461.86. Following the transaction, the chief accounting officer now directly owns 12,140 shares in the company, valued at approximately $2,829,348.40. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available at this link. Also, insider Kathy Card Beckles sold 227 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, March 6th. The stock was sold at an average price of $237.61, for a total transaction of $53,937.47. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider now owns 7,796 shares in the company, valued at $1,852,407.56. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 11,300 shares of company stock valued at $2,647,952 in the last ninety days. Corporate insiders own 0.40% of the company’s stock.

Verisk Analytics Stock Up 0.1 %

VRSK traded up $0.15 during trading hours on Wednesday, reaching $222.25. 841,364 shares of the stock traded hands, compared to its average volume of 878,728. The firm’s fifty day simple moving average is $236.86 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $237.46. The company has a market cap of $31.72 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 52.76, a PEG ratio of 2.77 and a beta of 0.78. Verisk Analytics, Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $187.86 and a fifty-two week high of $251.98. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 8.85, a current ratio of 1.05 and a quick ratio of 1.05.

Verisk Analytics (NASDAQ:VRSK) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, February 21st. The business services provider reported $1.40 earnings per share for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $1.44 by ($0.04). The company had revenue of $677.20 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $673.56 million. Verisk Analytics had a return on equity of 305.15% and a net margin of 22.92%. Verisk Analytics’s revenue was up 7.4% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the prior year, the business earned $1.43 earnings per share. As a group, analysts forecast that Verisk Analytics, Inc. will post 6.48 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Verisk Analytics Increases Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, March 29th. Shareholders of record on Friday, March 15th were issued a dividend of $0.39 per share. This is a positive change from Verisk Analytics’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.34. This represents a $1.56 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.70%. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, March 14th. Verisk Analytics’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 37.05%.

Verisk Analytics announced that its Board of Directors has authorized a stock buyback plan on Wednesday, February 21st that permits the company to repurchase $1.00 billion in outstanding shares. This repurchase authorization permits the business services provider to purchase up to 2.9% of its stock through open market purchases. Stock repurchase plans are often an indication that the company’s leadership believes its stock is undervalued.

Verisk Analytics Profile

Verisk Analytics, Inc provides data analytics and technology solutions to the insurance markets in the United States and internationally. It offers policy language, prospective loss costs, policy writing and rating rules, and various underwriting solutions for risk selection and segmentation, pricing, and workflow optimization; property- and auto- specific rating and underwriting information solutions that allows clients to understand, quantify, underwrite, mitigate, and avoid potential loss for risks; catastrophe modeling solutions, which enables companies to identify, quantify, and plan for the financial consequences of catastrophes for use by insurers, reinsurers, intermediaries, financial institutions, and governments.