King Wealth Management Group Makes New $227,000 Investment in Lazard, Inc. (NYSE:LAZ)

King Wealth Management Group bought a new position in Lazard, Inc. (NYSE:LAZ) in the third quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The fund bought 4,500 shares of the asset manager’s stock, valued at approximately $227,000.

Other institutional investors have also bought and sold shares of the company. Allspring Global Investments Holdings LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Lazard during the 1st quarter worth about $25,000. Sei Investments Co. raised its stake in shares of Lazard by 75.8% in the first quarter. Sei Investments Co. now owns 63,888 shares of the asset manager’s stock valued at $2,675,000 after acquiring an additional 27,552 shares during the last quarter. Russell Investments Group Ltd. grew its holdings in shares of Lazard by 192.7% during the first quarter. Russell Investments Group Ltd. now owns 9,314 shares of the asset manager’s stock worth $390,000 after purchasing an additional 6,132 shares during the last quarter. Bleakley Financial Group LLC bought a new stake in Lazard during the 1st quarter worth about $720,000. Finally, Orion Portfolio Solutions LLC bought a new stake in shares of Lazard during the first quarter valued at approximately $1,126,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 54.80% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several equities analysts recently weighed in on LAZ shares. The Goldman Sachs Group increased their price objective on shares of Lazard from $38.00 to $42.00 and gave the company a “sell” rating in a report on Friday, July 26th. UBS Group lifted their price objective on shares of Lazard from $49.00 to $52.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research note on Tuesday, October 8th. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods increased their target price on shares of Lazard from $59.00 to $65.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Friday, November 1st. Morgan Stanley upped their price objective on shares of Lazard from $56.00 to $60.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Monday, September 23rd. Finally, JMP Securities lifted their target price on Lazard from $55.00 to $59.00 and gave the stock a “market outperform” rating in a report on Friday, November 1st. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, three have assigned a hold rating and four have issued a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, Lazard presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $53.00.

Lazard Trading Up 1.5 %

NYSE:LAZ opened at $55.76 on Friday. The company has a quick ratio of 2.24, a current ratio of 2.24 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 2.72. Lazard, Inc. has a twelve month low of $26.25 and a twelve month high of $61.14. The company has a market cap of $6.29 billion, a P/E ratio of 22.22 and a beta of 1.38. The business has a 50 day moving average price of $51.26 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $45.38.

Lazard (NYSE:LAZ) last released its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, October 31st. The asset manager reported $0.38 earnings per share for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $0.41 by ($0.03). The firm had revenue of $646.00 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $644.22 million. Lazard had a return on equity of 42.20% and a net margin of 8.28%. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 21.4% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm earned $0.10 earnings per share. As a group, analysts expect that Lazard, Inc. will post 2.31 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Lazard Announces Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, November 15th. Stockholders of record on Friday, November 8th will be given a $0.50 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, November 8th. This represents a $2.00 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 3.59%. Lazard’s payout ratio is presently 79.68%.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other news, Chairman Kenneth M. Jacobs sold 87,770 shares of the stock in a transaction on Tuesday, September 3rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $48.08, for a total transaction of $4,219,981.60. Following the sale, the chairman now directly owns 1,553,225 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $74,679,058. This represents a 5.35 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Over the last three months, insiders have sold 176,497 shares of company stock valued at $8,658,086. 3.86% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

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.