Blair William & Co. IL Sells 31,026 Shares of Warner Music Group Corp. (NASDAQ:WMG)

Blair William & Co. IL reduced its stake in Warner Music Group Corp. (NASDAQ:WMG) by 20.0% during the 2nd quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 123,721 shares of the company’s stock after selling 31,026 shares during the quarter. Blair William & Co. IL’s holdings in Warner Music Group were worth $3,792,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Capital World Investors raised its holdings in shares of Warner Music Group by 41.7% in the 1st quarter. Capital World Investors now owns 13,201,194 shares of the company’s stock valued at $435,903,000 after purchasing an additional 3,881,684 shares during the period. FIL Ltd lifted its position in shares of Warner Music Group by 85.6% during the 4th quarter. FIL Ltd now owns 5,198,892 shares of the company’s stock worth $186,068,000 after buying an additional 2,397,232 shares during the last quarter. Point72 Asset Management L.P. boosted its stake in shares of Warner Music Group by 87.1% in the 4th quarter. Point72 Asset Management L.P. now owns 2,713,747 shares of the company’s stock valued at $97,125,000 after purchasing an additional 1,263,690 shares in the last quarter. Norges Bank bought a new stake in shares of Warner Music Group during the fourth quarter worth $43,628,000. Finally, Cooke & Bieler LP increased its holdings in Warner Music Group by 19.6% in the 2nd quarter. Cooke & Bieler LP now owns 5,061,093 shares of the company’s stock worth $155,122,000 after purchasing an additional 831,114 shares in the last quarter. 96.88% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Insider Transactions at Warner Music Group

In other Warner Music Group news, CEO Max Lousada sold 135,324 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, September 5th. The shares were sold at an average price of $28.17, for a total transaction of $3,812,077.08. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 2,725,964 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $76,790,405.88. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available at this link. Insiders sold a total of 628,205 shares of company stock valued at $17,628,757 over the last 90 days. Company insiders own 73.35% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of brokerages have recently issued reports on WMG. Redburn Atlantic restated a “sell” rating and set a $23.00 price objective (up from $21.00) on shares of Warner Music Group in a research report on Wednesday, July 10th. Wells Fargo & Company cut their price target on Warner Music Group from $37.00 to $34.00 and set an “equal weight” rating for the company in a research note on Thursday, August 8th. Tigress Financial cut their price target on shares of Warner Music Group from $52.00 to $44.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a report on Thursday, September 12th. Wolfe Research initiated coverage on Warner Music Group in a research report on Friday, July 12th. They set an “outperform” rating and a $37.00 target price for the company. Finally, Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft dropped their price target on Warner Music Group from $42.00 to $36.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research report on Tuesday, August 13th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, four have assigned a hold rating and eight have given a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $36.69.

Warner Music Group Stock Down 0.2 %

WMG stock opened at $30.44 on Friday. The company has a market cap of $15.77 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 30.44, a P/E/G ratio of 1.84 and a beta of 1.37. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 6.26, a quick ratio of 0.67 and a current ratio of 0.69. The business’s 50-day moving average is $29.29 and its two-hundred day moving average is $31.12. Warner Music Group Corp. has a fifty-two week low of $27.06 and a fifty-two week high of $38.05.

Warner Music Group (NASDAQ:WMG) last announced its earnings results on Wednesday, August 7th. The company reported $0.27 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.25 by $0.02. Warner Music Group had a net margin of 8.56% and a return on equity of 101.32%. The business had revenue of $1.55 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $1.58 billion. As a group, analysts forecast that Warner Music Group Corp. will post 1.04 earnings per share for the current year.

Warner Music Group Increases Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, September 4th. Investors of record on Tuesday, August 27th were paid a dividend of $0.18 per share. This is a boost from Warner Music Group’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.17. The ex-dividend date was Tuesday, August 27th. This represents a $0.72 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 2.37%. Warner Music Group’s payout ratio is 72.00%.

About Warner Music Group

Warner Music Group Corp. operates as a music entertainment company in the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, and internationally. It operates through Recorded Music and Music Publishing segments. The Recorded Music segment is involved in the discovery and development of recording artists, as well as related marketing, promotion, distribution, sale, and licensing of music created by such recording artists; markets its music catalog through compilations and reissuances of previously released music and video titles, as well as previously unreleased materials; and conducts its operation primarily through a collection of record labels, such as Warner Records and Atlantic Records, as well as Asylum, Big Beat, Canvasback, East West, Erato, FFRR, Fueled by Ramen, Nonesuch, Parlophone, Reprise, Roadrunner, Sire, Spinnin’ Records, Warner Classics, and Warner Music Nashville.