Dun & Bradstreet (NYSE:DNB) Receives Buy Rating from Needham & Company LLC

Needham & Company LLC restated their buy rating on shares of Dun & Bradstreet (NYSE:DNB) in a research report released on Thursday morning, Benzinga reports. Needham & Company LLC currently has a $17.00 price objective on the business services provider’s stock.

Several other equities analysts have also weighed in on DNB. Raymond James upgraded shares of Dun & Bradstreet from an outperform rating to a strong-buy rating and set a $18.00 price objective for the company in a research report on Friday, January 5th. Jefferies Financial Group reduced their price objective on shares of Dun & Bradstreet from $14.00 to $13.00 and set a buy rating for the company in a research report on Friday, April 12th. Finally, The Goldman Sachs Group raised their price objective on shares of Dun & Bradstreet from $10.30 to $11.50 and gave the company a neutral rating in a research report on Friday, February 16th. Four analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, three have given a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has an average rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus target price of $13.64.

Dun & Bradstreet Price Performance

Dun & Bradstreet stock traded up $0.23 during trading hours on Thursday, hitting $9.72. 3,862,224 shares of the company traded hands, compared to its average volume of 3,048,875. The firm has a market cap of $4.30 billion, a P/E ratio of -121.50, a P/E/G ratio of 2.02 and a beta of 1.15. The company has a quick ratio of 0.63, a current ratio of 0.62 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.04. The firm’s 50-day simple moving average is $9.81 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $10.44. Dun & Bradstreet has a 1-year low of $8.68 and a 1-year high of $12.62.

Dun & Bradstreet (NYSE:DNB) last released its earnings results on Thursday, February 15th. The business services provider reported $0.32 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.31 by $0.01. Dun & Bradstreet had a negative net margin of 1.56% and a positive return on equity of 10.99%. The firm had revenue of $630.40 million for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $623.19 million. During the same quarter last year, the company earned $0.28 EPS. Dun & Bradstreet’s quarterly revenue was up 5.9% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, analysts forecast that Dun & Bradstreet will post 0.88 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Dun & Bradstreet Announces Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, June 20th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, June 6th will be issued a $0.05 dividend. This represents a $0.20 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 2.06%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, June 6th. Dun & Bradstreet’s payout ratio is -250.00%.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, Director Cannae Holdings, Inc. sold 10,000,000 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, March 18th. The shares were sold at an average price of $10.09, for a total value of $100,900,000.00. Following the completion of the sale, the director now directly owns 69,048,691 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $696,701,292.19. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. Corporate insiders own 10.00% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Trading of Dun & Bradstreet

A number of hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in the stock. Massachusetts Financial Services Co. MA raised its position in Dun & Bradstreet by 29.1% during the third quarter. Massachusetts Financial Services Co. MA now owns 35,527,102 shares of the business services provider’s stock valued at $354,916,000 after acquiring an additional 8,009,051 shares in the last quarter. Shapiro Capital Management LLC bought a new position in Dun & Bradstreet during the third quarter valued at approximately $35,214,000. FMR LLC raised its position in shares of Dun & Bradstreet by 83.8% in the third quarter. FMR LLC now owns 6,916,851 shares of the business services provider’s stock valued at $69,099,000 after purchasing an additional 3,153,804 shares during the period. Norges Bank bought a new position in shares of Dun & Bradstreet in the fourth quarter valued at approximately $35,820,000. Finally, Confluence Investment Management LLC bought a new position in shares of Dun & Bradstreet in the first quarter valued at approximately $29,736,000. 86.68% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

About Dun & Bradstreet

Dun & Bradstreet Holdings, Inc, together with its subsidiaries, provides business-to-business data and analytics in North America and internationally. It offers finance and risk solutions, including D&B Finance Analytics, an online application that offers clients real time access to its information, comprehensive monitoring, and portfolio analysis; D&B Direct, an application programming interface (API) that delivers risk and financial data directly into enterprise applications for real-time credit decision-making; D&B Small Business, a suite of tools that allows SMBs to monitor and build their business credit file; D&B Enterprise Risk Assessment Manager, a solution for managing and automating credit decisioning and reporting; and D&B Risk Analytics, a subscription-based online application that offers clients real-time access to complete and up-to-date global information to mitigate supply chain risk, regulatory risk, and ESG assessment, as well as other related risks; Risk Guardian, a subscription-based online application that offers real-time access to Northern Europe information, monitoring, and portfolio analysis; and D&B Beneficial Ownership that offers risk intelligence on ultimate beneficial ownership.