Great Lakes Advisors LLC Purchases 520 Shares of Aflac Incorporated (NYSE:AFL)

Great Lakes Advisors LLC increased its position in Aflac Incorporated (NYSE:AFL) by 0.6% during the second quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the SEC. The firm owned 81,346 shares of the financial services provider’s stock after purchasing an additional 520 shares during the quarter. Great Lakes Advisors LLC’s holdings in Aflac were worth $5,678,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently modified their holdings of AFL. Bank Julius Baer & Co. Ltd Zurich grew its stake in Aflac by 99,608.4% in the 2nd quarter. Bank Julius Baer & Co. Ltd Zurich now owns 1,691,395,636 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $118,059,415,000 after buying an additional 1,689,699,293 shares during the last quarter. BlackRock Inc. grew its stake in Aflac by 0.7% in the 1st quarter. BlackRock Inc. now owns 42,505,613 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $2,742,462,000 after buying an additional 291,800 shares during the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC grew its stake in Aflac by 0.9% in the 1st quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 11,888,265 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $765,297,000 after buying an additional 105,298 shares during the last quarter. Morgan Stanley grew its stake in Aflac by 22.9% in the 4th quarter. Morgan Stanley now owns 8,812,956 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $634,004,000 after buying an additional 1,640,984 shares during the last quarter. Finally, First Trust Advisors LP grew its stake in Aflac by 71.2% in the 1st quarter. First Trust Advisors LP now owns 6,512,084 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $420,160,000 after buying an additional 2,707,608 shares during the last quarter. 66.75% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Analyst Ratings Changes

AFL has been the topic of a number of research reports. Citigroup upped their price target on shares of Aflac from $69.00 to $76.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Wednesday, August 9th. Jefferies Financial Group upped their price target on shares of Aflac from $70.00 to $74.00 and gave the company a “hold” rating in a research note on Thursday, September 14th. Truist Financial increased their target price on shares of Aflac from $70.00 to $80.00 and gave the stock a “hold” rating in a research report on Thursday, August 3rd. Wells Fargo & Company increased their target price on shares of Aflac from $71.00 to $78.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Tuesday, August 15th. Finally, Raymond James increased their target price on shares of Aflac from $77.00 to $83.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research report on Tuesday, September 26th. Seven equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and two have issued a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $79.63.

Aflac Stock Performance

Shares of Aflac stock opened at $81.77 on Monday. The company has a 50 day moving average of $78.54 and a 200-day moving average of $73.37. Aflac Incorporated has a 1-year low of $60.20 and a 1-year high of $82.71. The company has a current ratio of 0.08, a quick ratio of 0.08 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.31. The company has a market cap of $47.78 billion, a PE ratio of 10.77, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.97 and a beta of 0.89.

Aflac (NYSE:AFL) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, November 2nd. The financial services provider reported $1.84 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.44 by $0.40. Aflac had a net margin of 24.17% and a return on equity of 17.86%. The company had revenue of $4.95 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $4.31 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm posted $1.23 EPS. The firm’s quarterly revenue was up 5.2% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, equities research analysts forecast that Aflac Incorporated will post 6.26 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Aflac Dividend Announcement

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, December 1st. Stockholders of record on Wednesday, November 15th will be issued a dividend of $0.42 per share. This represents a $1.68 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 2.05%. The ex-dividend date is Tuesday, November 14th. Aflac’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 26.35%.

Insider Transactions at Aflac

In other news, COO Frederick John Crawford sold 100,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, November 2nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $81.37, for a total transaction of $8,137,000.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief operating officer now owns 236,539 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $19,247,178.43. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this hyperlink. In related news, COO Frederick John Crawford sold 100,000 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, November 2nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $81.37, for a total value of $8,137,000.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief operating officer now owns 236,539 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $19,247,178.43. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available through the SEC website. Also, Director Masatoshi Koide sold 32,000 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, November 9th. The shares were sold at an average price of $80.32, for a total transaction of $2,570,240.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the director now directly owns 55,598 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $4,465,631.36. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last 90 days, insiders sold 162,201 shares of company stock valued at $13,163,404. Company insiders own 0.90% of the company’s stock.

Aflac Company Profile

Aflac Incorporated, through its subsidiaries, provides supplemental health and life insurance products. It operates in two segments, Aflac Japan and Aflac U.S. The Aflac Japan segment offers cancer, medical, nursing care, work leave, GIFT, and whole and term life insurance products, as well as WAYS and child endowment plans under saving type insurance products in Japan.