Flowers Foods, Inc. (NYSE:FLO) Stake Cut by Rhumbline Advisers

Rhumbline Advisers decreased its stake in Flowers Foods, Inc. (NYSE:FLO) by 1.9% in the second quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 612,756 shares of the company’s stock after selling 11,616 shares during the quarter. Rhumbline Advisers owned approximately 0.29% of Flowers Foods worth $13,603,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other institutional investors have also recently bought and sold shares of FLO. Rise Advisors LLC acquired a new stake in Flowers Foods in the first quarter valued at approximately $26,000. Lindbrook Capital LLC raised its holdings in Flowers Foods by 80.3% in the 1st quarter. Lindbrook Capital LLC now owns 1,208 shares of the company’s stock worth $29,000 after acquiring an additional 538 shares during the period. Jones Financial Companies Lllp acquired a new position in shares of Flowers Foods during the 4th quarter worth about $39,000. GAMMA Investing LLC lifted its holdings in shares of Flowers Foods by 56.6% during the first quarter. GAMMA Investing LLC now owns 2,325 shares of the company’s stock worth $55,000 after buying an additional 840 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Versant Capital Management Inc grew its stake in shares of Flowers Foods by 7,694.7% in the second quarter. Versant Capital Management Inc now owns 2,962 shares of the company’s stock worth $66,000 after acquiring an additional 2,924 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 75.45% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several research firms recently commented on FLO. DA Davidson upped their target price on shares of Flowers Foods from $24.00 to $25.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Friday, May 17th. BNP Paribas initiated coverage on shares of Flowers Foods in a research report on Wednesday, July 10th. They issued an “underperform” rating and a $20.00 price target on the stock. Finally, StockNews.com upgraded Flowers Foods from a “buy” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Tuesday. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, three have assigned a hold rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $22.75.

Flowers Foods Trading Down 0.6 %

Shares of NYSE FLO opened at $23.34 on Wednesday. The company’s 50 day simple moving average is $22.54 and its 200 day simple moving average is $23.12. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.77, a current ratio of 1.19 and a quick ratio of 0.91. Flowers Foods, Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $19.64 and a fifty-two week high of $26.12. The firm has a market capitalization of $4.91 billion, a P/E ratio of 39.55, a P/E/G ratio of 4.52 and a beta of 0.36.

Flowers Foods (NYSE:FLO) last posted its earnings results on Friday, August 16th. The company reported $0.36 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.33 by $0.03. The company had revenue of $1.23 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.24 billion. Flowers Foods had a return on equity of 18.97% and a net margin of 2.51%. The company’s revenue for the quarter was down .3% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the company earned $0.33 EPS. On average, analysts predict that Flowers Foods, Inc. will post 1.25 EPS for the current year.

Flowers Foods Announces Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, September 20th. Shareholders of record on Friday, September 6th will be issued a $0.24 dividend. The ex-dividend date is Friday, September 6th. This represents a $0.96 annualized dividend and a yield of 4.11%. Flowers Foods’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 162.71%.

Flowers Foods Company Profile

Flowers Foods, Inc produces and markets packaged bakery food products in the United States. Its principal products include fresh breads, buns, rolls, snack items, bagels, English muffins, and tortillas, as well as frozen breads and rolls under the Nature's Own, Dave's Killer Bread, Wonder, Canyon Bakehouse, Mrs.