Louisiana State Employees Retirement System Purchases 200 Shares of EastGroup Properties, Inc. (NYSE:EGP)

Louisiana State Employees Retirement System grew its stake in shares of EastGroup Properties, Inc. (NYSE:EGP) by 1.5% during the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the SEC. The fund owned 13,700 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock after buying an additional 200 shares during the quarter. Louisiana State Employees Retirement System’s holdings in EastGroup Properties were worth $2,199,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also recently modified their holdings of the stock. Vaughan Nelson Investment Management L.P. grew its stake in shares of EastGroup Properties by 50.9% during the fourth quarter. Vaughan Nelson Investment Management L.P. now owns 517,770 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock worth $83,098,000 after buying an additional 174,630 shares during the last quarter. Sumitomo Mitsui DS Asset Management Company Ltd grew its stake in shares of EastGroup Properties by 6.7% during the fourth quarter. Sumitomo Mitsui DS Asset Management Company Ltd now owns 12,187 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock worth $1,956,000 after buying an additional 760 shares during the last quarter. Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Group Inc. grew its stake in shares of EastGroup Properties by 1.3% during the fourth quarter. Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Group Inc. now owns 53,632 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock worth $8,607,000 after buying an additional 706 shares during the last quarter. State of Alaska Department of Revenue grew its stake in shares of EastGroup Properties by 2.4% during the fourth quarter. State of Alaska Department of Revenue now owns 29,333 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock worth $4,706,000 after buying an additional 684 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Retirement Systems of Alabama grew its stake in shares of EastGroup Properties by 1.7% during the fourth quarter. Retirement Systems of Alabama now owns 60,097 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock worth $9,645,000 after buying an additional 998 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors own 92.14% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of research firms have weighed in on EGP. Royal Bank of Canada reaffirmed a “sector perform” rating and set a $186.00 target price on shares of EastGroup Properties in a research note on Wednesday, October 30th. Raymond James raised shares of EastGroup Properties from an “outperform” rating to a “strong-buy” rating and boosted their price objective for the stock from $185.00 to $200.00 in a research note on Wednesday, December 11th. Morgan Stanley reduced their price objective on shares of EastGroup Properties from $186.00 to $180.00 and set an “equal weight” rating on the stock in a research note on Monday, December 30th. Wedbush reissued an “outperform” rating and issued a $209.00 price objective on shares of EastGroup Properties in a research note on Friday, October 25th. Finally, StockNews.com raised shares of EastGroup Properties from a “sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Monday, February 10th. Eight investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, nine have issued a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $190.53.

EastGroup Properties Price Performance

Shares of NYSE EGP opened at $179.64 on Friday. The firm’s 50-day moving average price is $166.53 and its 200-day moving average price is $175.47. EastGroup Properties, Inc. has a 1-year low of $155.10 and a 1-year high of $192.61. The firm has a market capitalization of $8.89 billion, a P/E ratio of 38.63, a P/E/G ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.00. The company has a current ratio of 0.08, a quick ratio of 0.08 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.57.

EastGroup Properties (NYSE:EGP) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, February 6th. The real estate investment trust reported $2.15 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.16 by $0.99. EastGroup Properties had a net margin of 35.57% and a return on equity of 8.27%. Equities research analysts anticipate that EastGroup Properties, Inc. will post 8.94 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

EastGroup Properties Announces Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, January 15th. Stockholders of record on Tuesday, December 31st were issued a dividend of $1.40 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Tuesday, December 31st. This represents a $5.60 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 3.12%. EastGroup Properties’s dividend payout ratio is currently 120.43%.

EastGroup Properties Company Profile

EastGroup Properties, Inc (NYSE: EGP), a member of the S&P Mid-Cap 400 and Russell 1000 Indexes, is a self-administered equity real estate investment trust focused on the development, acquisition and operation of industrial properties in major Sunbelt markets throughout the United States with an emphasis in the states of Florida, Texas, Arizona, California and North Carolina.