Keefe, Bruyette & Woods Lowers Lazard (NYSE:LAZ) Price Target to $52.00

Lazard (NYSE:LAZ) had its target price cut by Keefe, Bruyette & Woods from $57.00 to $52.00 in a research note released on Monday morning,Benzinga reports. They currently have a market perform rating on the asset manager’s stock.

Other equities research analysts also recently issued research reports about the stock. Morgan Stanley downgraded shares of Lazard from an “overweight” rating to an “equal weight” rating and boosted their target price for the company from $60.00 to $63.00 in a research note on Monday, December 9th. StockNews.com downgraded shares of Lazard from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Monday, November 4th. JMP Securities boosted their target price on shares of Lazard from $55.00 to $59.00 and gave the company a “market outperform” rating in a research note on Friday, November 1st. UBS Group boosted their target price on shares of Lazard from $49.00 to $52.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Tuesday, October 8th. Finally, Wolfe Research downgraded shares of Lazard from an “outperform” rating to a “peer perform” rating in a research note on Friday, January 3rd. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, six have assigned a hold rating and one has assigned a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the company has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $53.50.

Lazard Trading Up 5.7 %

Shares of Lazard stock opened at $49.57 on Monday. The firm has a market capitalization of $5.59 billion, a PE ratio of 19.75 and a beta of 1.40. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 2.72, a current ratio of 2.24 and a quick ratio of 2.24. The company’s fifty day moving average price is $53.67 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $49.88. Lazard has a 52-week low of $35.56 and a 52-week high of $61.14.

Lazard (NYSE:LAZ) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, October 31st. The asset manager reported $0.38 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $0.41 by ($0.03). The business had revenue of $646.00 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $644.22 million. Lazard had a net margin of 8.28% and a return on equity of 42.20%. The company’s quarterly revenue was up 21.4% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period last year, the firm earned $0.10 EPS. On average, analysts expect that Lazard will post 2.18 EPS for the current year.

Lazard Dividend Announcement

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, November 15th. Investors of record on Friday, November 8th were given a dividend of $0.50 per share. The ex-dividend date was Friday, November 8th. This represents a $2.00 annualized dividend and a yield of 4.03%. Lazard’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 79.68%.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of large investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the business. O Keefe Stevens Advisory Inc. lifted its position in Lazard by 1.1% during the 4th quarter. O Keefe Stevens Advisory Inc. now owns 211,046 shares of the asset manager’s stock valued at $10,865,000 after purchasing an additional 2,386 shares during the period. Empirical Asset Management LLC acquired a new position in Lazard during the 4th quarter valued at about $3,813,000. Park Avenue Securities LLC lifted its position in Lazard by 12.2% during the 4th quarter. Park Avenue Securities LLC now owns 6,672 shares of the asset manager’s stock valued at $343,000 after purchasing an additional 728 shares during the period. Oliver Luxxe Assets LLC lifted its position in Lazard by 4.2% during the 4th quarter. Oliver Luxxe Assets LLC now owns 45,549 shares of the asset manager’s stock valued at $2,345,000 after purchasing an additional 1,838 shares during the period. Finally, Principal Financial Group Inc. lifted its position in Lazard by 10.1% during the 3rd quarter. Principal Financial Group Inc. now owns 2,250,049 shares of the asset manager’s stock valued at $113,357,000 after purchasing an additional 206,295 shares during the period. 54.80% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

About Lazard

Lazard, Inc, together with its subsidiaries, operates as a financial advisory and asset management firm in North and South America, Europe, the Middle East, Asia, and Australia. It operates in two segments, Financial Advisory and Asset Management. The Financial Advisory segment offers financial advisory services, such as mergers and acquisitions, capital markets, shareholder, sovereign, geopolitical advisory, and other strategic advisory services, as well as restructuring and liability management, and capital raising and placement services.