Eschler Asset Management LLP Buys New Stake in Transocean Ltd. $RIG

Eschler Asset Management LLP purchased a new position in shares of Transocean Ltd. (NYSE:RIG) during the third quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The fund purchased 120,000 shares of the offshore drilling services provider’s stock, valued at approximately $374,000.

A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Integrated Wealth Concepts LLC boosted its stake in shares of Transocean by 12.1% during the 1st quarter. Integrated Wealth Concepts LLC now owns 69,637 shares of the offshore drilling services provider’s stock worth $221,000 after acquiring an additional 7,520 shares in the last quarter. MIRAE ASSET GLOBAL ETFS HOLDINGS Ltd. increased its stake in shares of Transocean by 4.6% in the 1st quarter. MIRAE ASSET GLOBAL ETFS HOLDINGS Ltd. now owns 434,031 shares of the offshore drilling services provider’s stock valued at $1,376,000 after purchasing an additional 18,957 shares in the last quarter. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. increased its stake in shares of Transocean by 88.9% in the 1st quarter. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. now owns 12,151,817 shares of the offshore drilling services provider’s stock valued at $38,521,000 after purchasing an additional 5,719,637 shares in the last quarter. Bank of Montreal Can raised its holdings in Transocean by 6.4% in the 2nd quarter. Bank of Montreal Can now owns 159,347 shares of the offshore drilling services provider’s stock worth $413,000 after purchasing an additional 9,527 shares during the period. Finally, Wedbush Securities Inc. boosted its position in Transocean by 40.2% during the second quarter. Wedbush Securities Inc. now owns 15,350 shares of the offshore drilling services provider’s stock worth $40,000 after purchasing an additional 4,400 shares in the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 67.73% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several brokerages have commented on RIG. Weiss Ratings reissued a “sell (d-)” rating on shares of Transocean in a report on Thursday, January 22nd. Citigroup increased their target price on Transocean from $4.25 to $4.50 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Thursday, December 11th. BTIG Research lifted their price target on shares of Transocean from $6.00 to $10.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Monday, February 9th. Pareto Securities lowered shares of Transocean from a “hold” rating to a “sell” rating and set a $5.25 price target for the company. in a report on Tuesday, February 10th. Finally, Fearnley Fonds cut shares of Transocean from a “strong-buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Tuesday, February 10th. Two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, four have issued a Hold rating and three have issued a Sell rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Reduce” and a consensus price target of $6.38.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Transocean news, CEO Keelan Adamson sold 58,687 shares of Transocean stock in a transaction on Tuesday, January 27th. The shares were sold at an average price of $5.00, for a total transaction of $293,435.00. Following the sale, the chief executive officer owned 1,222,182 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $6,110,910. The trade was a 4.58% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available through this hyperlink. Also, EVP Roderick James Mackenzie sold 78,370 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Wednesday, March 4th. The stock was sold at an average price of $6.36, for a total transaction of $498,433.20. Following the sale, the executive vice president directly owned 268,025 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $1,704,639. The trade was a 22.62% decrease in their position. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. Insiders sold a total of 159,903 shares of company stock worth $906,098 in the last 90 days. 12.27% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Transocean Price Performance

Shares of Transocean stock opened at $6.27 on Friday. The business has a 50 day simple moving average of $5.38 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $4.28. Transocean Ltd. has a 12 month low of $1.97 and a 12 month high of $6.96. The stock has a market capitalization of $6.92 billion, a P/E ratio of -1.99 and a beta of 1.40. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.64, a current ratio of 1.56 and a quick ratio of 1.27.

Transocean (NYSE:RIG) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, February 19th. The offshore drilling services provider reported $0.02 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.09 by ($0.07). Transocean had a positive return on equity of 0.41% and a negative net margin of 73.52%.The firm had revenue of $1.04 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.03 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the firm earned ($0.09) earnings per share. The business’s revenue was up 9.6% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, analysts predict that Transocean Ltd. will post 0.14 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Transocean Profile

Transocean Ltd. is a leading international provider of offshore contract drilling services for the oil and gas industry. The company specializes in the operation of mobile drilling units, including ultra-deepwater drillships, semisubmersible rigs and high-specification jackup rigs. Transocean’s fleet is designed to meet complex drilling requirements, from ultra-deepwater well construction to shelf exploration and development projects.

The company’s core services encompass the full spectrum of offshore drilling operations, including project and engineering management, marine operations, drilling supervision, and maintenance support.