Callan Family Office LLC Purchases Shares of 5,401 Ball Co. (NYSE:BALL)

Callan Family Office LLC purchased a new stake in Ball Co. (NYSE:BALL) during the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund purchased 5,401 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $298,000.

A number of other institutional investors have also recently made changes to their positions in the stock. Franklin Resources Inc. grew its position in shares of Ball by 4.7% in the 3rd quarter. Franklin Resources Inc. now owns 6,954,876 shares of the company’s stock valued at $453,144,000 after buying an additional 309,587 shares during the last quarter. FMR LLC lifted its stake in shares of Ball by 15.4% in the 3rd quarter. FMR LLC now owns 4,418,570 shares of the company’s stock valued at $300,065,000 after purchasing an additional 588,282 shares during the period. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. lifted its stake in shares of Ball by 2.0% in the 4th quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 1,891,046 shares of the company’s stock valued at $104,253,000 after purchasing an additional 36,809 shares during the period. Raymond James Financial Inc. acquired a new position in shares of Ball in the 4th quarter valued at about $94,861,000. Finally, Janus Henderson Group PLC lifted its stake in shares of Ball by 14.1% in the 3rd quarter. Janus Henderson Group PLC now owns 707,279 shares of the company’s stock valued at $48,030,000 after purchasing an additional 87,577 shares during the period. Institutional investors own 86.51% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of research analysts have recently issued reports on the company. Mizuho raised Ball from a “neutral” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $67.00 price objective on the stock in a research note on Tuesday, December 10th. Robert W. Baird dropped their price objective on Ball from $70.00 to $63.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a research note on Wednesday, February 5th. UBS Group dropped their price objective on Ball from $60.00 to $55.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a research note on Thursday, February 13th. Barclays dropped their price objective on Ball from $72.00 to $61.00 and set an “equal weight” rating on the stock in a research note on Thursday, February 6th. Finally, Morgan Stanley dropped their price target on Ball from $75.00 to $70.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a research note on Wednesday, February 5th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, four have given a hold rating, six have assigned a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Ball presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $64.64.

Ball Stock Performance

Shares of Ball stock opened at $53.98 on Tuesday. The company has a market cap of $15.24 billion, a PE ratio of 4.26, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.24 and a beta of 0.99. Ball Co. has a 52 week low of $48.95 and a 52 week high of $71.32. The business has a 50 day moving average price of $52.88 and a 200-day moving average price of $59.13. The company has a quick ratio of 0.69, a current ratio of 1.00 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.90.

Ball (NYSE:BALL) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, February 4th. The company reported $0.84 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.81 by $0.03. The firm had revenue of $2.88 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $2.92 billion. Ball had a return on equity of 16.17% and a net margin of 33.98%. The company’s quarterly revenue was down .8% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the prior year, the business posted $0.78 earnings per share. Equities analysts anticipate that Ball Co. will post 3.48 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Ball Announces Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, March 17th. Stockholders of record on Monday, March 3rd will be paid a $0.20 dividend. This represents a $0.80 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.48%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Monday, March 3rd. Ball’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 6.32%.

Ball announced that its Board of Directors has approved a stock repurchase program on Wednesday, January 29th that authorizes the company to repurchase $4.00 billion in shares. This repurchase authorization authorizes the company to purchase up to 24.2% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares repurchase programs are typically an indication that the company’s leadership believes its stock is undervalued.

About Ball

Ball Corporation supplies aluminum packaging products for the beverage, personal care, and household products industries in the United States, Brazil, and internationally. The company manufactures and sells aluminum beverage containers to fillers of carbonated soft drinks, beer, energy drinks, and other beverages.