The Toro Company (NYSE:TTC) Shares Acquired by Fifth Third Bancorp

Fifth Third Bancorp increased its holdings in shares of The Toro Company (NYSE:TTC) by 270.5% during the fourth quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The firm owned 4,717 shares of the company’s stock after acquiring an additional 3,444 shares during the period. Fifth Third Bancorp’s holdings in Toro were worth $378,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Several other large investors have also recently bought and sold shares of the business. Millennium Management LLC increased its holdings in shares of Toro by 11,970.3% in the 2nd quarter. Millennium Management LLC now owns 393,008 shares of the company’s stock valued at $36,750,000 after purchasing an additional 389,752 shares in the last quarter. Nuance Investments LLC acquired a new position in Toro during the third quarter worth about $29,146,000. Worldquant Millennium Advisors LLC increased its holdings in Toro by 71.2% in the third quarter. Worldquant Millennium Advisors LLC now owns 217,739 shares of the company’s stock valued at $18,885,000 after buying an additional 90,538 shares in the last quarter. Benjamin Edwards Inc. lifted its position in shares of Toro by 6,995.4% during the 3rd quarter. Benjamin Edwards Inc. now owns 74,005 shares of the company’s stock valued at $6,418,000 after acquiring an additional 72,962 shares during the period. Finally, Brown Brothers Harriman & Co. boosted its stake in shares of Toro by 31.5% during the 3rd quarter. Brown Brothers Harriman & Co. now owns 298,150 shares of the company’s stock worth $25,859,000 after acquiring an additional 71,431 shares in the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 87.95% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Separately, Raymond James reduced their price objective on Toro from $100.00 to $95.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a report on Friday, December 20th. Three equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and two have given a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, the company currently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $93.75.

Toro Trading Up 0.4 %

Shares of TTC opened at $84.55 on Friday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.59, a current ratio of 1.81 and a quick ratio of 0.74. The Toro Company has a 1-year low of $76.95 and a 1-year high of $100.93. The stock has a market cap of $8.55 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 21.08 and a beta of 0.72. The firm has a 50 day simple moving average of $83.67 and a 200-day simple moving average of $85.99.

Toro (NYSE:TTC) last released its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, December 18th. The company reported $0.95 earnings per share for the quarter, hitting analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.95. Toro had a return on equity of 27.25% and a net margin of 9.14%. The company had revenue of $1.08 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $1.09 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the firm posted $0.71 earnings per share. The business’s revenue for the quarter was up 9.4% compared to the same quarter last year. Equities analysts forecast that The Toro Company will post 4.41 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Toro Increases Dividend

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, January 13th. Shareholders of record on Monday, December 23rd were paid a dividend of $0.38 per share. This is a boost from Toro’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.36. This represents a $1.52 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.80%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Monday, December 23rd. Toro’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 37.91%.

Toro announced that its Board of Directors has initiated a share buyback program on Tuesday, December 10th that permits the company to buyback 4,000,000 outstanding shares. This buyback authorization permits the company to reacquire shares of its stock through open market purchases. Stock buyback programs are usually an indication that the company’s board believes its shares are undervalued.

Toro Company Profile

The Toro Company designs, manufactures, markets, and sells professional turf maintenance equipment and services. It operates through two segments: Professional and Residential. The Professional segment offers turf and landscape equipment products, including sports fields and grounds mowing and maintenance equipment, golf course mowing and maintenance equipment, landscape contractor mowing equipment, landscape creation and renovation equipment, and other maintenance equipment; rental, specialty, and underground construction equipment, such as horizontal directional drills, walk and ride trenchers, stand-on skid steers, vacuum excavators, stump grinders, turf renovation products, asset locators, pipe rehabilitation solutions, materials handling equipment, and other after-market tools; and snow and ice management equipment, such as snowplows, as well as stand-on snow and ice removal equipment, such as snowplow, snow brush, and snow thrower attachments, salt and sand spreaders, and related parts and accessories for light and medium duty trucks, utility task vehicles, skid steers, and front-end loaders.