Brandywine Global Investment Management LLC Makes New $1.73 Million Investment in The Toro Company (NYSE:TTC)

Brandywine Global Investment Management LLC purchased a new stake in The Toro Company (NYSE:TTC) in the fourth quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor purchased 21,647 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $1,734,000.

Several other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also recently made changes to their positions in TTC. CIBC Private Wealth Group LLC grew its holdings in Toro by 30.2% in the 4th quarter. CIBC Private Wealth Group LLC now owns 547 shares of the company’s stock valued at $43,000 after buying an additional 127 shares in the last quarter. Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership purchased a new stake in shares of Toro in the fourth quarter valued at about $4,421,000. Allstate Corp acquired a new stake in Toro during the fourth quarter worth about $253,000. Brown Brothers Harriman & Co. raised its stake in Toro by 10.9% during the fourth quarter. Brown Brothers Harriman & Co. now owns 330,748 shares of the company’s stock worth $26,493,000 after purchasing an additional 32,598 shares during the period. Finally, DnB Asset Management AS boosted its holdings in Toro by 2.2% in the 4th quarter. DnB Asset Management AS now owns 26,452 shares of the company’s stock valued at $2,119,000 after purchasing an additional 580 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 87.95% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several research firms have recently commented on TTC. Northland Capmk raised shares of Toro from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Friday, February 21st. Raymond James reduced their target price on Toro from $100.00 to $95.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a research report on Friday, December 20th. StockNews.com cut Toro from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Tuesday, March 18th. Robert W. Baird reduced their price objective on shares of Toro from $88.00 to $84.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a report on Friday, March 7th. Finally, Northland Securities raised shares of Toro from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $100.00 target price for the company in a research note on Monday, February 24th. Three equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, two have assigned a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $89.75.

Toro Trading Up 1.8 %

Shares of NYSE TTC opened at $73.91 on Thursday. The stock has a fifty day simple moving average of $78.34 and a 200-day simple moving average of $81.76. The Toro Company has a twelve month low of $71.23 and a twelve month high of $100.93. The company has a current ratio of 1.81, a quick ratio of 0.74 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.59. The stock has a market capitalization of $7.38 billion, a PE ratio of 18.43 and a beta of 0.72.

Toro Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, April 14th. Stockholders of record on Monday, March 31st will be given a dividend of $0.38 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Monday, March 31st. This represents a $1.52 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 2.06%. Toro’s dividend payout ratio is presently 38.87%.

Toro announced that its Board of Directors has authorized a stock repurchase program on Tuesday, December 10th that allows the company to buyback 4,000,000 outstanding shares. This buyback authorization allows the company to purchase shares of its stock through open market purchases. Shares buyback programs are generally an indication that the company’s leadership believes its shares are undervalued.

About Toro

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.