Legal & General Group Plc Buys 662,334 Shares of Essential Utilities Inc. $WTRG

Legal & General Group Plc boosted its stake in shares of Essential Utilities Inc. (NYSE:WTRG) by 19.0% in the 4th quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The institutional investor owned 4,149,063 shares of the company’s stock after purchasing an additional 662,334 shares during the period. Legal & General Group Plc’s holdings in Essential Utilities were worth $159,158,000 as of its most recent filing with the SEC.

Several other institutional investors also recently added to or reduced their stakes in WTRG. JPMorgan Chase & Co. grew its position in Essential Utilities by 587.6% during the third quarter. JPMorgan Chase & Co. now owns 4,071,929 shares of the company’s stock valued at $162,472,000 after buying an additional 3,479,762 shares during the period. ANTIPODES PARTNERS Ltd bought a new position in Essential Utilities during the third quarter valued at about $128,137,000. Balyasny Asset Management L.P. grew its position in Essential Utilities by 1,572.4% during the second quarter. Balyasny Asset Management L.P. now owns 1,271,201 shares of the company’s stock valued at $47,212,000 after buying an additional 1,195,189 shares during the period. AQR Capital Management LLC boosted its position in Essential Utilities by 121.8% during the third quarter. AQR Capital Management LLC now owns 1,591,706 shares of the company’s stock worth $62,697,000 after purchasing an additional 873,990 shares during the period. Finally, Vanguard Group Inc. boosted its position in Essential Utilities by 2.8% during the third quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 31,246,084 shares of the company’s stock worth $1,246,719,000 after purchasing an additional 838,450 shares during the period. Institutional investors own 74.78% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

WTRG has been the subject of a number of research reports. UBS Group set a $41.00 target price on shares of Essential Utilities in a research report on Thursday, May 7th. Argus upgraded shares of Essential Utilities to a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Monday, March 23rd. Finally, Weiss Ratings reiterated a “hold (c+)” rating on shares of Essential Utilities in a research report on Friday, May 22nd. Two investment analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, one has given a Buy rating, five have issued a Hold rating and one has given a Sell rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $42.40.

Essential Utilities Price Performance

Shares of NYSE:WTRG opened at $37.14 on Thursday. The company has a quick ratio of 0.84, a current ratio of 0.95 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.21. The firm has a market capitalization of $10.53 billion, a PE ratio of 18.85 and a beta of 0.67. Essential Utilities Inc. has a twelve month low of $36.32 and a twelve month high of $42.37. The company has a 50-day moving average price of $39.10 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $39.03.

Essential Utilities (NYSE:WTRG) last issued its earnings results on Thursday, May 7th. The company reported $0.83 earnings per share for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.90 by ($0.07). The business had revenue of $861.76 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $782.90 million. Essential Utilities had a return on equity of 8.34% and a net margin of 21.82%.Essential Utilities’s revenue for the quarter was up 10.0% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business earned $1.03 EPS. Equities analysts forecast that Essential Utilities Inc. will post 2.25 EPS for the current year.

About Essential Utilities

Essential Utilities, Inc, formerly known as Aqua America, is a publicly traded water and natural gas utility holding company. Through its regulated water and wastewater subsidiaries, the company provides essential water services to residential, commercial and industrial customers. In addition, Essential Utilities delivers natural gas distribution services in Pennsylvania through its Peoples Gas subsidiary, offering integrated utility solutions under a unified corporate framework.

The company traces its roots to the Philadelphia Suburban Water Company, founded in 1886 to serve growing communities outside Philadelphia.