Legal & General Group Plc Has $16.01 Million Holdings in Jefferies Financial Group Inc. $JEF

Legal & General Group Plc cut its stake in shares of Jefferies Financial Group Inc. (NYSE:JEF) by 19.4% in the 4th quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The fund owned 258,358 shares of the financial services provider’s stock after selling 62,165 shares during the period. Legal & General Group Plc’s holdings in Jefferies Financial Group were worth $16,010,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other hedge funds have also recently bought and sold shares of the company. Victory Capital Management Inc. lifted its position in Jefferies Financial Group by 245.2% during the third quarter. Victory Capital Management Inc. now owns 651,216 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $42,603,000 after acquiring an additional 462,546 shares during the last quarter. Wealth Enhancement Advisory Services LLC lifted its position in Jefferies Financial Group by 26.8% during the fourth quarter. Wealth Enhancement Advisory Services LLC now owns 147,894 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $9,848,000 after acquiring an additional 31,288 shares during the last quarter. Citigroup Inc. lifted its position in Jefferies Financial Group by 284.7% during the third quarter. Citigroup Inc. now owns 226,770 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $14,835,000 after acquiring an additional 167,817 shares during the last quarter. GSA Capital Partners LLP lifted its position in Jefferies Financial Group by 186.8% during the third quarter. GSA Capital Partners LLP now owns 57,621 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $3,770,000 after acquiring an additional 37,530 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Fox Run Management L.L.C. acquired a new stake in Jefferies Financial Group during the third quarter worth approximately $2,114,000. 60.88% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of equities research analysts have recently weighed in on the stock. BMO Capital Markets dropped their price target on shares of Jefferies Financial Group from $68.00 to $42.00 and set a “market perform” rating for the company in a research report on Monday, March 23rd. Zacks Research upgraded shares of Jefferies Financial Group from a “strong sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Thursday, April 9th. Weiss Ratings downgraded shares of Jefferies Financial Group from a “hold (c-)” rating to a “sell (d+)” rating in a research report on Monday, May 18th. The Goldman Sachs Group lifted their price target on shares of Jefferies Financial Group from $47.00 to $54.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Tuesday, April 14th. Finally, Morgan Stanley downgraded shares of Jefferies Financial Group from an “overweight” rating to an “equal weight” rating and set a $49.00 price target for the company. in a research report on Monday, March 9th. Three analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, three have issued a Hold rating and one has given a Sell rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $58.14.

Jefferies Financial Group Stock Performance

NYSE JEF opened at $53.17 on Tuesday. The firm’s fifty day moving average price is $47.34 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $52.99. The stock has a market cap of $10.87 billion, a PE ratio of 17.96 and a beta of 1.54. Jefferies Financial Group Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $35.53 and a fifty-two week high of $71.04. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.87, a quick ratio of 1.04 and a current ratio of 1.04.

Jefferies Financial Group (NYSE:JEF) last posted its earnings results on Wednesday, March 25th. The financial services provider reported $0.70 earnings per share for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.89 by ($0.19). The company had revenue of $2.02 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $2.02 billion. Jefferies Financial Group had a return on equity of 7.83% and a net margin of 6.61%.The business’s quarterly revenue was up 26.6% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the firm posted $0.57 EPS. On average, equities analysts expect that Jefferies Financial Group Inc. will post 3.79 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Jefferies Financial Group Dividend Announcement

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, May 29th. Shareholders of record on Monday, May 18th were paid a dividend of $0.40 per share. This represents a $1.60 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 3.0%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Monday, May 18th. Jefferies Financial Group’s payout ratio is presently 54.05%.

About Jefferies Financial Group

Jefferies Financial Group Inc is a diversified financial services company that provides a range of investment banking, capital markets and asset management services to corporations, governments and institutional investors worldwide. Through its core platform, Jefferies offers advisory services for mergers and acquisitions, debt and equity underwriting, restructuring and recapitalization. The firm also operates a global sales and trading business covering equities, fixed income and foreign exchange products, complemented by equity research and macroeconomic analysis.

In addition to its capital markets franchise, Jefferies maintains a growing asset management division that delivers customized investment solutions across public and private markets.