Champlain Investment Partners LLC Reduces Stake in Pure Storage, Inc. $PSTG

Champlain Investment Partners LLC trimmed its holdings in Pure Storage, Inc. (NYSE:PSTG) by 20.8% in the third quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund owned 4,239,530 shares of the technology company’s stock after selling 1,115,598 shares during the quarter. Pure Storage accounts for about 2.7% of Champlain Investment Partners LLC’s portfolio, making the stock its biggest holding. Champlain Investment Partners LLC’s holdings in Pure Storage were worth $355,315,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Several other large investors also recently made changes to their positions in PSTG. CI Investments Inc. raised its holdings in shares of Pure Storage by 31.0% in the 3rd quarter. CI Investments Inc. now owns 1,671 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $140,000 after purchasing an additional 395 shares in the last quarter. Focus Partners Advisor Solutions LLC increased its holdings in shares of Pure Storage by 143.7% in the third quarter. Focus Partners Advisor Solutions LLC now owns 13,405 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $1,208,000 after buying an additional 7,905 shares in the last quarter. Elo Mutual Pension Insurance Co lifted its position in shares of Pure Storage by 27.1% during the 3rd quarter. Elo Mutual Pension Insurance Co now owns 28,210 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $2,364,000 after acquiring an additional 6,020 shares during the last quarter. Fisher Asset Management LLC bought a new stake in shares of Pure Storage during the 3rd quarter worth $6,016,000. Finally, Journey Strategic Wealth LLC grew its holdings in shares of Pure Storage by 8.4% in the 3rd quarter. Journey Strategic Wealth LLC now owns 4,375 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $367,000 after acquiring an additional 338 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors own 83.42% of the company’s stock.

Pure Storage Stock Up 2.0%

PSTG stock opened at $65.53 on Tuesday. The company has a 50 day moving average of $70.31 and a two-hundred day moving average of $77.79. The company has a market cap of $21.64 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 119.15, a PEG ratio of 4.50 and a beta of 1.29. Pure Storage, Inc. has a 12-month low of $34.51 and a 12-month high of $100.59.

Pure Storage (NYSE:PSTG) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, February 25th. The technology company reported $0.69 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.65 by $0.04. Pure Storage had a net margin of 5.14% and a return on equity of 14.36%. The business had revenue of $1.06 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $1.03 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the company posted $0.45 EPS. Pure Storage’s revenue was up 20.4% on a year-over-year basis. On average, research analysts anticipate that Pure Storage, Inc. will post 0.44 EPS for the current year.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several brokerages have recently commented on PSTG. Needham & Company LLC reaffirmed a “buy” rating and set a $100.00 target price on shares of Pure Storage in a report on Wednesday, December 3rd. Oppenheimer began coverage on shares of Pure Storage in a research note on Monday, November 17th. They set an “outperform” rating and a $120.00 price objective for the company. Wall Street Zen upgraded shares of Pure Storage from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a report on Saturday, February 21st. Barclays boosted their price target on shares of Pure Storage from $77.00 to $81.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a report on Thursday, February 26th. Finally, UBS Group upped their price target on shares of Pure Storage from $60.00 to $63.00 and gave the company a “sell” rating in a research report on Thursday, February 26th. Twelve research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, six have issued a Hold rating and one has assigned a Sell rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $94.32.

Insider Activity

In other Pure Storage news, insider Ajay Singh sold 7,178 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, December 23rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $67.14, for a total value of $481,930.92. Following the transaction, the insider directly owned 215,091 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $14,441,209.74. This represents a 3.23% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, insider John Colgrove sold 100,000 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, December 8th. The stock was sold at an average price of $71.31, for a total value of $7,131,000.00. The SEC filing for this sale provides additional information. Corporate insiders own 5.60% of the company’s stock.

Pure Storage Profile

Pure Storage, Inc (NYSE: PSTG) is a technology company that designs and sells data storage hardware and software for enterprise and cloud environments. The company is best known for its all-flash storage arrays that are engineered to deliver high performance, low latency and simplified management compared with traditional disk-based systems. Its product portfolio includes purpose-built arrays and software aimed at transactional databases, virtualized infrastructures, analytics and large-scale file/object workloads.

Key product and software offerings include the FlashArray family for block storage and FlashBlade for file and object workloads, together with Purity, the company’s storage operating environment.