Leonardo DRS (NASDAQ:DRS) Board of Directors Initiates Share Buyback Plan

Leonardo DRS (NASDAQ:DRS) declared that its Board of Directors has approved a stock repurchase program on Thursday, February 20th, RTT News reports. The company plans to repurchase $75.00 million in outstanding shares. This repurchase authorization permits the company to buy up to 0.9% of its stock through open market purchases. Stock repurchase programs are often a sign that the company’s board of directors believes its stock is undervalued.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

DRS has been the subject of several research analyst reports. Truist Financial boosted their price objective on Leonardo DRS from $36.00 to $37.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Tuesday, January 14th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised their price target on shares of Leonardo DRS from $29.00 to $32.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research note on Monday, November 4th. Finally, Robert W. Baird lifted their target price on shares of Leonardo DRS from $30.00 to $40.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Thursday, October 31st. Three research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and three have given a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $33.00.

Leonardo DRS Stock Up 5.4 %

Shares of Leonardo DRS stock opened at $31.15 on Friday. The business has a fifty day simple moving average of $33.67 and a 200 day simple moving average of $31.49. The company has a quick ratio of 1.70, a current ratio of 2.11 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.14. The stock has a market cap of $8.23 billion, a PE ratio of 42.09, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.30 and a beta of 1.01. Leonardo DRS has a 12 month low of $19.88 and a 12 month high of $37.99.

Leonardo DRS (NASDAQ:DRS) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, February 20th. The company reported $0.38 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.36 by $0.02. Leonardo DRS had a net margin of 6.23% and a return on equity of 9.71%. Research analysts predict that Leonardo DRS will post 0.92 EPS for the current year.

Leonardo DRS Announces Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, March 27th. Investors of record on Thursday, March 13th will be paid a $0.09 dividend. This represents a $0.36 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.16%.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other Leonardo DRS news, CEO William Lynn III sold 45,000 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, January 31st. The shares were sold at an average price of $35.25, for a total transaction of $1,586,250.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 189,937 shares in the company, valued at $6,695,279.25. The trade was a 19.15 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link. Also, CFO Michael Dippold sold 25,880 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, December 2nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $34.08, for a total transaction of $881,990.40. Following the completion of the sale, the chief financial officer now owns 47,028 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,602,714.24. The trade was a 35.50 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last three months, insiders have sold 150,089 shares of company stock valued at $5,178,619. 0.12% of the stock is owned by insiders.

About Leonardo DRS

Leonardo DRS, Inc, together with its subsidiaries, provides defense electronic products and systems, and military support services. It operates through Advanced Sensing and Computing (ASC) segment, and Integrated Mission Systems (IMS) segments. The ASC segment designs, develops, and manufacture sensing and network computing technology that enables real-time situational awareness required for enhanced operational decision making and execution; and offers sensing capabilities span applications, such as missions requiring advanced detection, precision targeting and surveillance sensing, long range electro-optic/infrared, signals intelligence, and other intelligence systems including electronic warfare, ground vehicle sensing, active electronically scanned array tactical radars, dismounted soldier, and space sensing.