Boussard & Gavaudan Investment Management LLP Takes $2.79 Million Position in Juniper Networks, Inc. (NYSE:JNPR)

Boussard & Gavaudan Investment Management LLP acquired a new stake in Juniper Networks, Inc. (NYSE:JNPR) during the 4th quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The firm acquired 74,583 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock, valued at approximately $2,786,000.

A number of other institutional investors have also recently bought and sold shares of JNPR. Norges Bank bought a new position in Juniper Networks during the 4th quarter worth about $262,618,000. Amundi raised its stake in Juniper Networks by 60.1% in the 4th quarter. Amundi now owns 4,157,158 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock valued at $159,510,000 after acquiring an additional 1,559,884 shares during the period. Oddo BHF Asset Management Sas acquired a new stake in Juniper Networks during the 3rd quarter valued at $25,337,000. Twin Securities Inc. grew its holdings in Juniper Networks by 760.3% in the 3rd quarter. Twin Securities Inc. now owns 678,257 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock valued at $26,438,000 after buying an additional 599,420 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Vanguard Group Inc. grew its stake in shares of Juniper Networks by 1.4% in the fourth quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 43,264,855 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock valued at $1,620,269,000 after acquiring an additional 599,214 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 91.95% of the company’s stock.

Insider Activity

In other news, COO Manoj Leelanivas sold 30,978 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, February 26th. The shares were sold at an average price of $36.02, for a total transaction of $1,115,827.56. Following the completion of the sale, the chief operating officer now owns 94,771 shares in the company, valued at $3,413,651.42. This trade represents a 24.63 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at this hyperlink. Insiders own 1.28% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several brokerages have recently commented on JNPR. Barclays boosted their target price on shares of Juniper Networks from $37.00 to $39.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Wednesday, February 5th. StockNews.com cut Juniper Networks from a “strong-buy” rating to a “buy” rating in a report on Friday. Evercore ISI raised Juniper Networks from an “in-line” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $40.00 price target on the stock in a research note on Tuesday, February 4th. Finally, Argus lowered shares of Juniper Networks from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Friday, February 7th. Five research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and two have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, Juniper Networks has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $39.80.

Juniper Networks Stock Performance

JNPR opened at $36.22 on Friday. Juniper Networks, Inc. has a 1-year low of $33.72 and a 1-year high of $39.79. The company has a market cap of $12.07 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 42.11, a PEG ratio of 2.20 and a beta of 0.86. The company’s fifty day moving average price is $36.31 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $37.43. The company has a current ratio of 1.46, a quick ratio of 1.14 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.25.

Juniper Networks (NYSE:JNPR) last posted its earnings results on Tuesday, February 4th. The network equipment provider reported $0.45 earnings per share for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.58 by ($0.13). Juniper Networks had a net margin of 5.67% and a return on equity of 7.57%. On average, analysts expect that Juniper Networks, Inc. will post 1.33 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Juniper Networks Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, March 24th. Shareholders of record on Monday, March 3rd were paid a $0.22 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Monday, March 3rd. This represents a $0.88 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 2.43%. Juniper Networks’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 102.33%.

Juniper Networks Company Profile

Juniper Networks, Inc designs, develops, and sells network products and services worldwide. The company offers routing products, such as ACX series universal access routers to deploy high-bandwidth services; MX series Ethernet routers that function as a universal edge platform; PTX series packet transport routers; wide-area network SDN controllers; and session smart routers.