DnB Asset Management AS Grows Position in Celanese Co. (NYSE:CE)

DnB Asset Management AS increased its holdings in shares of Celanese Co. (NYSE:CE) by 8.0% during the 4th quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The institutional investor owned 23,201 shares of the basic materials company’s stock after acquiring an additional 1,726 shares during the period. DnB Asset Management AS’s holdings in Celanese were worth $1,606,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently made changes to their positions in the company. Wellington Management Group LLP grew its position in Celanese by 27.4% during the 3rd quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP now owns 9,460,353 shares of the basic materials company’s stock valued at $1,286,230,000 after purchasing an additional 2,036,362 shares during the last quarter. State Street Corp increased its position in shares of Celanese by 3.1% during the third quarter. State Street Corp now owns 4,500,813 shares of the basic materials company’s stock valued at $611,931,000 after acquiring an additional 136,994 shares in the last quarter. Norges Bank purchased a new position in Celanese in the 4th quarter worth approximately $222,815,000. Geode Capital Management LLC lifted its position in Celanese by 7.3% in the 3rd quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 2,606,172 shares of the basic materials company’s stock valued at $353,145,000 after acquiring an additional 177,552 shares in the last quarter. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. increased its holdings in shares of Celanese by 5.2% in the 4th quarter. JPMorgan Chase & Co. now owns 1,688,619 shares of the basic materials company’s stock worth $116,869,000 after purchasing an additional 82,860 shares in the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 98.87% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

CE has been the subject of several research analyst reports. Piper Sandler reduced their price objective on Celanese from $77.00 to $50.00 and set an “underweight” rating for the company in a report on Tuesday, February 25th. StockNews.com downgraded shares of Celanese from a “hold” rating to a “sell” rating in a research report on Thursday, February 20th. Jefferies Financial Group cut their target price on shares of Celanese from $102.00 to $82.00 in a research report on Thursday, December 5th. Citigroup upgraded Celanese to a “neutral” rating and raised their price target for the stock from $73.00 to $76.00 in a research note on Thursday, January 23rd. Finally, Morgan Stanley reduced their price objective on Celanese from $100.00 to $80.00 and set an “equal weight” rating for the company in a research report on Monday, January 13th. Three investment analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, ten have assigned a hold rating and five have given a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, Celanese currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $66.94.

Celanese Stock Down 1.8 %

Shares of CE stock opened at $55.72 on Wednesday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.98, a current ratio of 1.34 and a quick ratio of 0.76. Celanese Co. has a one year low of $45.94 and a one year high of $171.68. The company’s fifty day moving average price is $61.31 and its 200-day moving average price is $83.64. The company has a market capitalization of $6.09 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of -4.00, a PEG ratio of 1.05 and a beta of 1.23.

Celanese (NYSE:CE) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, February 18th. The basic materials company reported $1.45 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.25 by $0.20. Celanese had a positive return on equity of 12.86% and a negative net margin of 14.81%. The business had revenue of $2.37 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $2.36 billion. Sell-side analysts expect that Celanese Co. will post 8.79 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Celanese Cuts Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Tuesday, March 11th. Stockholders of record on Tuesday, February 25th were given a dividend of $0.03 per share. This represents a $0.12 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.22%. The ex-dividend date was Tuesday, February 25th. Celanese’s payout ratio is currently -0.86%.

Celanese Company Profile

Celanese Corporation, a chemical and specialty materials company, manufactures and sells high performance engineered polymers in the United States and internationally. It operates through Engineered Materials and Acetyl Chain. The Engineered Materials segment develops, produces, and supplies specialty polymers for automotive and medical applications, as well as for use in industrial products and consumer electronics.