Lord Abbett & CO. LLC Acquires 23,823 Shares of Verisk Analytics, Inc. (NASDAQ:VRSK)

Lord Abbett & CO. LLC lifted its holdings in shares of Verisk Analytics, Inc. (NASDAQ:VRSK) by 29.5% during the third quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The firm owned 104,536 shares of the business services provider’s stock after purchasing an additional 23,823 shares during the quarter. Lord Abbett & CO. LLC’s holdings in Verisk Analytics were worth $28,011,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently made changes to their positions in VRSK. Sanctuary Advisors LLC lifted its holdings in Verisk Analytics by 188.2% during the third quarter. Sanctuary Advisors LLC now owns 25,637 shares of the business services provider’s stock valued at $7,454,000 after purchasing an additional 16,742 shares during the last quarter. Icon Wealth Advisors LLC lifted its stake in shares of Verisk Analytics by 899.1% during the 3rd quarter. Icon Wealth Advisors LLC now owns 11,919 shares of the business services provider’s stock valued at $2,913,000 after buying an additional 10,726 shares in the last quarter. KBC Group NV boosted its holdings in Verisk Analytics by 15.3% in the 3rd quarter. KBC Group NV now owns 35,908 shares of the business services provider’s stock worth $9,622,000 after buying an additional 4,767 shares during the period. Point72 Hong Kong Ltd grew its stake in Verisk Analytics by 479.1% in the 3rd quarter. Point72 Hong Kong Ltd now owns 16,853 shares of the business services provider’s stock valued at $4,516,000 after buying an additional 13,943 shares in the last quarter. Finally, CIBC Asset Management Inc raised its holdings in Verisk Analytics by 5.7% during the 3rd quarter. CIBC Asset Management Inc now owns 44,290 shares of the business services provider’s stock valued at $11,868,000 after acquiring an additional 2,374 shares during the period. 90.00% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of research firms recently issued reports on VRSK. BMO Capital Markets boosted their price objective on Verisk Analytics from $263.00 to $276.00 and gave the company a “market perform” rating in a research note on Friday, November 1st. Evercore ISI reissued an “in-line” rating and issued a $279.00 price target on shares of Verisk Analytics in a report on Wednesday, October 2nd. Barclays boosted their price objective on shares of Verisk Analytics from $275.00 to $310.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Friday, September 13th. Morgan Stanley increased their target price on shares of Verisk Analytics from $283.00 to $300.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Thursday. Finally, Royal Bank of Canada boosted their price target on shares of Verisk Analytics from $268.00 to $300.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Thursday, October 17th. Six analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, three have issued a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $289.80.

Insider Transactions at Verisk Analytics

In other news, CFO Elizabeth Mann sold 200 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, November 15th. The stock was sold at an average price of $286.49, for a total transaction of $57,298.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief financial officer now directly owns 15,608 shares in the company, valued at approximately $4,471,535.92. This represents a 1.27 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, CEO Lee Shavel sold 1,000 shares of the stock in a transaction on Monday, November 18th. The shares were sold at an average price of $280.71, for a total transaction of $280,710.00. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 53,163 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $14,923,385.73. This trade represents a 1.85 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 2,400 shares of company stock valued at $678,764 over the last 90 days. Company insiders own 0.40% of the company’s stock.

Verisk Analytics Stock Down 0.7 %

VRSK stock opened at $283.35 on Monday. The business’s 50-day moving average is $279.60 and its two-hundred day moving average is $272.82. The company has a market cap of $40.01 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 44.20, a P/E/G ratio of 3.55 and a beta of 0.87. Verisk Analytics, Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $217.34 and a fifty-two week high of $296.58. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 8.36, a quick ratio of 0.82 and a current ratio of 0.82.

Verisk Analytics (NASDAQ:VRSK) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, October 30th. The business services provider reported $1.67 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $1.60 by $0.07. Verisk Analytics had a return on equity of 274.13% and a net margin of 32.65%. The firm had revenue of $725.30 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $722.19 million. During the same period in the prior year, the business posted $1.52 EPS. Verisk Analytics’s revenue was up 7.0% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, analysts forecast that Verisk Analytics, Inc. will post 6.63 earnings per share for the current year.

Verisk Analytics Announces Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Tuesday, December 31st. Stockholders of record on Friday, December 13th will be given a $0.39 dividend. The ex-dividend date is Friday, December 13th. This represents a $1.56 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.55%. Verisk Analytics’s payout ratio is 24.34%.

About Verisk Analytics

Verisk Analytics, Inc provides data analytics and technology solutions to the insurance markets in the United States and internationally. It offers policy language, prospective loss costs, policy writing and rating rules, and various underwriting solutions for risk selection and segmentation, pricing, and workflow optimization; property- and auto- specific rating and underwriting information solutions that allows clients to understand, quantify, underwrite, mitigate, and avoid potential loss for risks; catastrophe modeling solutions, which enables companies to identify, quantify, and plan for the financial consequences of catastrophes for use by insurers, reinsurers, intermediaries, financial institutions, and governments.