Chesapeake Capital Corp IL Makes New $1.02 Million Investment in AngloGold Ashanti PLC $AU

Chesapeake Capital Corp IL acquired a new position in shares of AngloGold Ashanti PLC (NYSE:AU) in the third quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor acquired 14,472 shares of the mining company’s stock, valued at approximately $1,018,000. AngloGold Ashanti comprises 0.9% of Chesapeake Capital Corp IL’s holdings, making the stock its 28th largest position.

Several other hedge funds also recently modified their holdings of the stock. State Street Corp grew its stake in AngloGold Ashanti by 1,175.7% in the second quarter. State Street Corp now owns 4,967,173 shares of the mining company’s stock valued at $226,354,000 after purchasing an additional 4,577,807 shares in the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC increased its position in shares of AngloGold Ashanti by 274.6% during the 2nd quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 3,137,721 shares of the mining company’s stock worth $142,986,000 after purchasing an additional 2,300,204 shares during the last quarter. Van ECK Associates Corp raised its stake in shares of AngloGold Ashanti by 10.0% during the 3rd quarter. Van ECK Associates Corp now owns 19,847,932 shares of the mining company’s stock worth $1,395,905,000 after purchasing an additional 1,804,620 shares in the last quarter. Norges Bank bought a new stake in shares of AngloGold Ashanti during the 2nd quarter worth approximately $74,039,000. Finally, Capital World Investors boosted its holdings in shares of AngloGold Ashanti by 125.8% in the 3rd quarter. Capital World Investors now owns 2,544,918 shares of the mining company’s stock valued at $178,984,000 after buying an additional 1,417,775 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors own 36.09% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of equities analysts recently weighed in on the stock. Zacks Research downgraded shares of AngloGold Ashanti from a “strong-buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Monday, February 23rd. JPMorgan Chase & Co. increased their price target on shares of AngloGold Ashanti from $128.00 to $131.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Wednesday, December 3rd. Wall Street Zen raised shares of AngloGold Ashanti from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report on Saturday, December 13th. Weiss Ratings upgraded shares of AngloGold Ashanti from a “hold (c+)” rating to a “buy (b-)” rating in a research note on Thursday. Finally, Citigroup upped their target price on shares of AngloGold Ashanti from $105.00 to $120.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Tuesday, January 20th. Six analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, one has assigned a Hold rating and one has assigned a Sell rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, AngloGold Ashanti presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $100.50.

AngloGold Ashanti Stock Down 9.5%

AU opened at $94.73 on Friday. AngloGold Ashanti PLC has a 1-year low of $31.91 and a 1-year high of $129.14. The stock’s fifty day simple moving average is $106.09 and its 200 day simple moving average is $85.34. The company has a current ratio of 2.58, a quick ratio of 1.98 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.21. The stock has a market cap of $47.83 billion, a PE ratio of 18.25 and a beta of 0.55.

AngloGold Ashanti (NYSE:AU) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Friday, February 20th. The mining company reported $1.90 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, meeting the consensus estimate of $1.90. The business had revenue of $3.07 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $2.99 billion. AngloGold Ashanti had a return on equity of 29.70% and a net margin of 26.65%. As a group, research analysts expect that AngloGold Ashanti PLC will post 3.83 earnings per share for the current year.

AngloGold Ashanti Cuts Dividend

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, March 27th. Shareholders of record on Friday, March 13th will be issued a $0.173 dividend. This represents a $0.69 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.7%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, March 13th. AngloGold Ashanti’s dividend payout ratio is currently 70.13%.

About AngloGold Ashanti

AngloGold Ashanti is a global gold mining company engaged in the exploration, development, production, processing and sale of gold. Headquartered in Johannesburg, South Africa, the company’s core activities span the full mining value chain from greenfield exploration and mine development through to ore processing and rehabilitation. Gold is the primary commodity produced, with individual operations sometimes yielding other by‑products depending on local geology and processing methods.

The company was formed in 2004 through the merger of AngloGold and Ashanti Goldfields, creating a diversified international gold producer.