BlackRock Fund Advisors recently announced the acquisition of new stake in Univar Solutions Inc. (NYSE:UNVR). The institutional investor has increased its shareholding in the Basic Materials company by 0.96% to 13.15 million shares with purchase of 0.13 million shares. This fresh investment now brings its stake to 8.06% valued currently at $456.98 million. In addition, Invesco Advisers, Inc. raised its holdings by 0.22 million to 5.31 million shares. And Franklin Mutual Advisers LLC has lifted its position by 54.98% or 1.81 million shares – to 5.1 million shares.
With over 17.57 million Univar Solutions Inc. (UNVR) shares trading Tuesday and a closing price of $34.91 on the day, the dollar volume was approximately $613.21 million. The shares have shown a positive half year performance of 31.89% and its price on 03/14/23 gained nearly 12.00%. Currently, there are 159.50M common shares owned by the public and among those 156.18M shares have been available to trade.
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Insiders at the company have transacted a total of 76 times over the past 12 months, according to data filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). 59 of these insider trades were purchases, accounting for 985,098 shares. Insider sales of the common stock occurred on 17 occasions, with total insider shares sold totaling 597,344 shares.
The top 3 mutual fund holders in Univar Solutions Inc. are iShares Core S&P Mid Cap ETF, Vanguard Total Stock Market Index, and EdgePoint Global Portfolio. iShares Core S&P Mid Cap ETF owns 5.09 million shares of the company’s stock, all valued at over $176.97 million. The company bought an additional 11544.0 shares recently to bring their total holdings to about 3.12% of the shares outstanding. Vanguard Total Stock Market Index bought 50013.0 shares to see its total holdings expand to 5.0 million shares valued at over $173.9 million and representing 3.07% of the shares outstanding. EdgePoint Global Portfolio sold -2.63 million shares to bring its total holdings to over 4.86 million shares at a value of $168.85 million. EdgePoint Global Portfolio now owns shares totaling to 2.98% of the shares outstanding.
Shares of Univar Solutions Inc. (NYSE: UNVR) opened at $35.05, up $3.88 from a prior closing price of $31.17. However, the script later moved the day high at 35.18, up 12.00%. The company’s stock has a 5-day price change of 2.62% and 6.60% over the past three months. UNVR shares are trading 9.78% year to date (YTD), with the 12-month market performance up to 13.90% higher. It has a 12-month low price of $21.49 and touched a high of $35.61 over the same period. UNVR has an average intraday trading volume of 1.25 million shares. The stock is trading above its simple moving averages at the SMA20, SMA50, and SMA200, as the current price level is off by 2.51%, 3.92%, and 21.39% respectively.
Institutional ownership of Univar Solutions Inc. (NYSE: UNVR) shares accounts for 99.90% of the company’s 159.50M shares outstanding. Mutual fund holders own 53.26%, while other institutional holders and individual stakeholders account for 62.03% and 35.98% respectively.
It has a market capitalization of $5.60B and a beta (3y monthly) value of 1.71. The stock’s trailing 12-month PE ratio is 10.78, while the earnings-per-share (ttm) stands at $3.24. The company has a PEG of 2.50 and a Quick Ratio of 1.30 with the debt-to-equity ratio at 0.99. Price movements for the stock have been influenced by the stock’s volatility, which stands at 2.47% over the week and 2.68% over the month.
Earnings per share for the fiscal year are expected to increase by 21.20%, and 14.64% over the next financial year. EPS should shrink at an annualized rate of 4.31% over the next five years, compared to 18.60% over the past 5-year period.
If you are looking to buy this stock, then you may note that the average analyst recommendation by 8 brokerage firm advisors rate Univar Solutions Inc. (UNVR) as a “Moderate Buy” at a consensus score of 2.30. Specifically, 4 Wall Street analysts polled rate the stock as a buy, while 3 of the 8 advise that investors “hold,” and 0 rated it as a “Sell.”
Looking at the support for the UNVR, a number of firms have released research notes about the stock. UBS stated their Neutral rating for the stock in a research note on February 09, 2023, with the firm’s price target at $37. Credit Suisse was of a view on October 21, 2022 that the stock is Outperform, while Goldman gave the stock Neutral rating on October 13, 2022, issuing a price target of $26. Wells Fargo on their part issued Overweight rating on May 25, 2022.
