Short Interest in Perrigo Company plc (NYSE:PRGO) Declines By 15.1%

Perrigo Company plc (NYSE:PRGO) saw a significant decrease in short interest in the month of February. As of February 28th, there was short interest totalling 4,570,000 shares, a decrease of 15.1% from the February 13th total of 5,380,000 shares. Currently, 3.4% of the shares of the company are sold short. Based on an average trading volume of 1,550,000 shares, the days-to-cover ratio is presently 2.9 days.

Insider Activity

In related news, EVP Ronald Craig Janish sold 7,800 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Monday, March 10th. The stock was sold at an average price of $27.44, for a total value of $214,032.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the executive vice president now directly owns 33,666 shares in the company, valued at approximately $923,795.04. This represents a 18.81 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available through this hyperlink. 0.70% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Institutional Trading of Perrigo

A number of hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in PRGO. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD increased its stake in shares of Perrigo by 6,828.9% in the fourth quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD now owns 7,845,539 shares of the company’s stock valued at $201,710,000 after buying an additional 7,732,309 shares in the last quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP boosted its holdings in Perrigo by 229.2% in the third quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP now owns 2,697,698 shares of the company’s stock valued at $70,761,000 after acquiring an additional 1,878,145 shares during the last quarter. FMR LLC boosted its holdings in Perrigo by 66,795.3% in the third quarter. FMR LLC now owns 1,840,289 shares of the company’s stock valued at $48,271,000 after acquiring an additional 1,837,538 shares during the last quarter. Norges Bank bought a new position in Perrigo in the fourth quarter valued at about $36,614,000. Finally, Ion Asset Management Ltd. boosted its holdings in Perrigo by 50.1% in the fourth quarter. Ion Asset Management Ltd. now owns 2,820,000 shares of the company’s stock valued at $72,502,000 after acquiring an additional 941,667 shares during the last quarter. 95.91% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of research analysts recently commented on PRGO shares. Argus lowered Perrigo from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Tuesday, January 14th. StockNews.com lowered Perrigo from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Wednesday, February 19th. Finally, Piper Sandler lowered Perrigo from an “overweight” rating to a “neutral” rating and dropped their price objective for the stock from $34.00 to $27.00 in a research note on Monday, January 6th. Four investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and one has assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, Perrigo presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $33.00.

Perrigo Stock Performance

Perrigo stock opened at $27.86 on Thursday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.94, a current ratio of 2.56 and a quick ratio of 1.77. The stock has a fifty day moving average price of $25.59 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $26.17. Perrigo has a 52-week low of $23.14 and a 52-week high of $33.46. The firm has a market capitalization of $3.80 billion, a P/E ratio of -23.81 and a beta of 0.48.

Perrigo (NYSE:PRGO) last announced its earnings results on Thursday, February 27th. The company reported $0.93 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.92 by $0.01. Perrigo had a positive return on equity of 7.38% and a negative net margin of 3.64%. The company had revenue of $1.14 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.20 billion. As a group, analysts anticipate that Perrigo will post 2.56 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Perrigo Increases Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Tuesday, March 25th. Stockholders of record on Friday, March 7th will be paid a $0.29 dividend. The ex-dividend date is Friday, March 7th. This is a positive change from Perrigo’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.28. This represents a $1.16 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 4.16%. Perrigo’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is -92.80%.

Perrigo Company Profile

Perrigo Company plc provides over-the-counter health and wellness solutions to enhance individual well-being in the United States, Europe, and internationally. It operates through Consumer Self-Care Americas and Consumer Self-Care International segments. The company develops, manufactures, markets, and distributes self-care consumer products, such as upper respiratory products, including cough suppressants, expectorants, and sinus and allergy relief; nutrition products consisting of infant formulas and nutritional beverages; digestive health products, including antacids, anti-diarrheal, and anti-heartburn; pain and sleep-aids products comprising pain relievers and fever reducers; and oral care products, which include toothbrushes, toothbrush replacement heads, floss, flossers, whitening products, and toothbrush covers.