Bessemer Group Inc. Buys New Holdings in Western Midstream Partners, LP (NYSE:WES)

Bessemer Group Inc. bought a new stake in Western Midstream Partners, LP (NYSE:WES) in the 1st quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The firm bought 1,000 shares of the pipeline company’s stock, valued at approximately $41,000.

Several other hedge funds have also bought and sold shares of WES. Invesco Ltd. lifted its position in Western Midstream Partners by 6.6% during the fourth quarter. Invesco Ltd. now owns 22,809,161 shares of the pipeline company’s stock worth $876,556,000 after acquiring an additional 1,406,362 shares during the last quarter. MIRAE ASSET GLOBAL ETFS HOLDINGS Ltd. lifted its position in Western Midstream Partners by 23.1% during the fourth quarter. MIRAE ASSET GLOBAL ETFS HOLDINGS Ltd. now owns 7,273,186 shares of the pipeline company’s stock worth $279,509,000 after acquiring an additional 1,366,341 shares during the last quarter. Stifel Financial Corp lifted its position in Western Midstream Partners by 624.5% during the fourth quarter. Stifel Financial Corp now owns 785,096 shares of the pipeline company’s stock worth $30,171,000 after acquiring an additional 676,729 shares during the last quarter. Barclays PLC lifted its position in Western Midstream Partners by 83.1% during the fourth quarter. Barclays PLC now owns 1,404,381 shares of the pipeline company’s stock worth $53,971,000 after acquiring an additional 637,266 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Raymond James Financial Inc. acquired a new stake in Western Midstream Partners during the fourth quarter worth approximately $19,079,000. 84.82% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several equities research analysts have issued reports on WES shares. Mizuho cut their price objective on shares of Western Midstream Partners from $45.00 to $44.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research report on Tuesday, May 20th. Wall Street Zen upgraded shares of Western Midstream Partners from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report on Saturday, March 8th. Two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, three have given a hold rating and two have issued a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat.com, Western Midstream Partners presently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $39.83.

Western Midstream Partners Stock Down 0.8%

NYSE WES opened at $38.78 on Friday. The company has a current ratio of 1.18, a quick ratio of 1.18 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 2.08. Western Midstream Partners, LP has a 1-year low of $33.60 and a 1-year high of $43.33. The company has a 50 day moving average of $38.19 and a 200-day moving average of $39.26. The company has a market cap of $14.79 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 11.57 and a beta of 1.08.

Western Midstream Partners (NYSE:WES) last released its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, May 7th. The pipeline company reported $0.79 earnings per share for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.83 by ($0.04). The business had revenue of $917.12 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $926.55 million. Western Midstream Partners had a net margin of 35.79% and a return on equity of 38.52%. The firm’s quarterly revenue was up 3.3% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm posted $1.47 earnings per share. On average, equities research analysts expect that Western Midstream Partners, LP will post 4.02 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Western Midstream Partners Increases Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, May 15th. Investors of record on Friday, May 2nd were paid a $0.91 dividend. This represents a $3.64 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 9.39%. This is a boost from Western Midstream Partners’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.88. The ex-dividend date was Friday, May 2nd. Western Midstream Partners’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 108.66%.

About Western Midstream Partners

Western Midstream Partners, LP, together with its subsidiaries, operates as a midstream energy company primarily in the United States. It is involved in gathering, compressing, treating, processing, and transporting natural gas; gathering, stabilizing, and transporting condensate, natural gas liquids (NGLs), and crude oil; and gathering and disposing produced water.