Vontobel Holding Ltd. Has $210,000 Stake in The Toro Company (NYSE:TTC)

Vontobel Holding Ltd. boosted its holdings in The Toro Company (NYSE:TTC) by 10.9% during the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The firm owned 2,618 shares of the company’s stock after acquiring an additional 257 shares during the quarter. Vontobel Holding Ltd.’s holdings in Toro were worth $210,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds have also added to or reduced their stakes in the business. CWM LLC grew its stake in Toro by 15.5% during the third quarter. CWM LLC now owns 1,063 shares of the company’s stock worth $92,000 after buying an additional 143 shares during the last quarter. Blue Trust Inc. grew its stake in Toro by 534.8% during the third quarter. Blue Trust Inc. now owns 1,333 shares of the company’s stock worth $125,000 after buying an additional 1,123 shares during the last quarter. Raymond James & Associates grew its stake in Toro by 5.7% during the third quarter. Raymond James & Associates now owns 278,700 shares of the company’s stock worth $24,172,000 after buying an additional 14,950 shares during the last quarter. Assenagon Asset Management S.A. grew its stake in Toro by 13.1% during the third quarter. Assenagon Asset Management S.A. now owns 6,251 shares of the company’s stock worth $542,000 after buying an additional 723 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Forsta AP Fonden grew its stake in shares of Toro by 9.0% during the third quarter. Forsta AP Fonden now owns 23,100 shares of the company’s stock valued at $2,003,000 after purchasing an additional 1,900 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors own 87.95% of the company’s stock.

Toro Price Performance

TTC opened at $79.95 on Friday. The Toro Company has a one year low of $76.95 and a one year high of $100.93. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.59, a current ratio of 1.81 and a quick ratio of 0.74. The company’s 50 day simple moving average is $81.74 and its 200-day simple moving average is $84.34. The stock has a market capitalization of $8.05 billion, a P/E ratio of 19.94 and a beta of 0.72.

Toro (NYSE:TTC) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, December 18th. The company reported $0.95 earnings per share for the quarter, meeting the consensus estimate of $0.95. Toro had a net margin of 9.14% and a return on equity of 27.25%. The business had revenue of $1.08 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.09 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the business posted $0.71 earnings per share. Toro’s revenue was up 9.4% compared to the same quarter last year. Sell-side analysts anticipate that The Toro Company will post 4.41 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Toro Increases Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, January 13th. Shareholders of record on Monday, December 23rd were issued a $0.38 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Monday, December 23rd. This is a positive change from Toro’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.36. This represents a $1.52 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.90%. Toro’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 37.91%.

Toro announced that its board has authorized a stock buyback program on Tuesday, December 10th that permits the company to repurchase 4,000,000 outstanding shares. This repurchase authorization permits the company to repurchase shares of its stock through open market purchases. Stock repurchase programs are typically an indication that the company’s board believes its stock is undervalued.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Separately, Raymond James decreased their price target on shares of Toro from $100.00 to $95.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a research note on Friday, December 20th. Three analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and two have issued a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Toro has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $93.75.

Toro Profile

The Toro Company designs, manufactures, markets, and sells professional turf maintenance equipment and services. It operates through two segments: Professional and Residential. The Professional segment offers turf and landscape equipment products, including sports fields and grounds mowing and maintenance equipment, golf course mowing and maintenance equipment, landscape contractor mowing equipment, landscape creation and renovation equipment, and other maintenance equipment; rental, specialty, and underground construction equipment, such as horizontal directional drills, walk and ride trenchers, stand-on skid steers, vacuum excavators, stump grinders, turf renovation products, asset locators, pipe rehabilitation solutions, materials handling equipment, and other after-market tools; and snow and ice management equipment, such as snowplows, as well as stand-on snow and ice removal equipment, such as snowplow, snow brush, and snow thrower attachments, salt and sand spreaders, and related parts and accessories for light and medium duty trucks, utility task vehicles, skid steers, and front-end loaders.