Citigroup Inc. Increases Stock Position in Lazard Ltd (NYSE:LAZ)

Citigroup Inc. grew its stake in shares of Lazard Ltd (NYSE:LAZ) by 6,544.8% during the second quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The fund owned 480,489 shares of the asset manager’s stock after buying an additional 473,258 shares during the quarter. Citigroup Inc.’s holdings in Lazard were worth $15,376,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission.

A number of other institutional investors have also recently made changes to their positions in the stock. Beverly Hills Private Wealth LLC bought a new position in shares of Lazard in the 2nd quarter worth approximately $391,000. California Public Employees Retirement System lifted its stake in shares of Lazard by 1.8% in the 2nd quarter. California Public Employees Retirement System now owns 184,326 shares of the asset manager’s stock worth $5,898,000 after purchasing an additional 3,171 shares during the period. Rhumbline Advisers lifted its stake in shares of Lazard by 29.9% in the 2nd quarter. Rhumbline Advisers now owns 125,448 shares of the asset manager’s stock worth $4,014,000 after purchasing an additional 28,893 shares during the period. Mitsubishi UFJ Trust & Banking Corp lifted its stake in shares of Lazard by 8.7% in the 2nd quarter. Mitsubishi UFJ Trust & Banking Corp now owns 33,682 shares of the asset manager’s stock worth $1,078,000 after purchasing an additional 2,691 shares during the period. Finally, Acadian Asset Management LLC lifted its stake in shares of Lazard by 1,254.7% in the 2nd quarter. Acadian Asset Management LLC now owns 19,792 shares of the asset manager’s stock worth $633,000 after purchasing an additional 18,331 shares during the period. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 57.64% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several brokerages have recently weighed in on LAZ. JMP Securities lowered their price objective on shares of Lazard from $53.00 to $50.00 and set a “market outperform” rating on the stock in a research note on Tuesday, October 10th. UBS Group lowered their price objective on shares of Lazard from $37.00 to $32.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a research note on Tuesday, October 3rd. The Goldman Sachs Group cut shares of Lazard from a “neutral” rating to a “sell” rating and decreased their target price for the stock from $37.00 to $32.00 in a research note on Tuesday, September 19th. Morgan Stanley raised their target price on shares of Lazard from $41.00 to $45.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research note on Friday, October 27th. Finally, StockNews.com started coverage on shares of Lazard in a research note on Thursday, October 5th. They set a “hold” rating on the stock. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, four have issued a hold rating and two have given a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the company currently has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $39.00.

Lazard Trading Down 0.1 %

Lazard stock opened at $26.80 on Tuesday. The stock has a market cap of $3.02 billion, a P/E ratio of -22.71 and a beta of 1.40. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 4.03, a current ratio of 1.71 and a quick ratio of 1.71. Lazard Ltd has a 1 year low of $25.82 and a 1 year high of $43.44. The firm’s 50 day moving average price is $29.58 and its 200-day moving average price is $31.26.

Lazard (NYSE:LAZ) last released its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, October 26th. The asset manager reported $0.10 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $0.19 by ($0.09). The company had revenue of $532.00 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $572.54 million. Lazard had a negative net margin of 3.87% and a positive return on equity of 15.28%. The company’s quarterly revenue was down 26.8% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business earned $1.05 EPS. On average, equities analysts predict that Lazard Ltd will post 0.5 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Lazard Announces Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, November 17th. Stockholders of record on Monday, November 6th were given a dividend of $0.50 per share. This represents a $2.00 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 7.46%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Friday, November 3rd. Lazard’s payout ratio is currently -169.49%.

About Lazard

Lazard Ltd, together with its subsidiaries, operates as a financial advisory and asset management firm in North America, Europe, Asia, Australia, and Central and South America. It operates in two segments, Financial Advisory and Asset Management. The Financial Advisory segment offers various financial advisory services regarding mergers and acquisitions, restructurings, capital advisory, shareholder advisory, capital raising, sovereign advisory, and other strategic advisory matters.