AZZ Inc. (NYSE:AZZ) Receives Average Recommendation of “Moderate Buy” from Brokerages

AZZ Inc. (NYSE:AZZ) has been assigned a consensus recommendation of “Moderate Buy” from the seven ratings firms that are covering the stock, Marketbeat.com reports. Three investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and four have assigned a buy rating to the company. The average 12 month price target among brokerages that have covered the stock in the last year is $96.80.

Separately, Jefferies Financial Group raised their price objective on shares of AZZ from $105.00 to $110.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Friday, December 6th.

AZZ Stock Performance

Shares of AZZ stock opened at $86.47 on Friday. AZZ has a one year low of $60.82 and a one year high of $97.98. The company’s 50-day moving average is $88.09 and its 200 day moving average is $82.59. The company has a market capitalization of $2.58 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 58.42, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.22 and a beta of 1.30. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.85, a quick ratio of 1.26 and a current ratio of 1.77.

AZZ (NYSE:AZZ) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, January 7th. The industrial products company reported $1.39 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.29 by $0.10. AZZ had a net margin of 7.94% and a return on equity of 16.99%. The company had revenue of $403.65 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $394.30 million. During the same period in the prior year, the firm posted $1.19 EPS. AZZ’s revenue for the quarter was up 5.8% on a year-over-year basis. Sell-side analysts expect that AZZ will post 5.13 EPS for the current fiscal year.

AZZ Announces Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, February 20th. Investors of record on Thursday, January 30th will be issued a $0.17 dividend. This represents a $0.68 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.79%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, January 30th. AZZ’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 45.95%.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several institutional investors and hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of the company. FMR LLC increased its position in AZZ by 13.6% during the third quarter. FMR LLC now owns 3,223,391 shares of the industrial products company’s stock valued at $266,284,000 after acquiring an additional 385,240 shares during the last quarter. State Street Corp increased its position in AZZ by 2.6% during the third quarter. State Street Corp now owns 1,100,189 shares of the industrial products company’s stock valued at $90,887,000 after acquiring an additional 27,710 shares during the last quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP bought a new position in AZZ during the third quarter valued at $61,139,000. Geode Capital Management LLC increased its position in AZZ by 1.5% during the third quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 675,603 shares of the industrial products company’s stock valued at $55,823,000 after acquiring an additional 10,072 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Harvey Partners LLC increased its position in AZZ by 1.8% during the third quarter. Harvey Partners LLC now owns 666,000 shares of the industrial products company’s stock valued at $55,018,000 after acquiring an additional 12,000 shares during the last quarter. 90.93% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

About AZZ

AZZ Inc provides hot-dip galvanizing and coil coating solutions in North America. It offers metal finishing solutions for corrosion protection, including hot-dip galvanizing, spin galvanizing, powder coating, anodizing, and plating to steel fabrication and other industries, as well as to fabricators or manufacturers that provide services to the transmission and distribution, bridge and highway, petrochemical, and general industrial markets; and original equipment manufacturers.