Vest Financial LLC Takes $1.52 Million Position in Pegasystems Inc. $PEGA

Vest Financial LLC bought a new stake in Pegasystems Inc. (NASDAQ:PEGA) in the 3rd quarter, according to its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor bought 26,348 shares of the technology company’s stock, valued at approximately $1,515,000.

Other hedge funds have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Massachusetts Financial Services Co. MA increased its stake in shares of Pegasystems by 23.1% during the 3rd quarter. Massachusetts Financial Services Co. MA now owns 4,987,291 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $286,769,000 after acquiring an additional 937,216 shares during the last quarter. Nordea Investment Management AB grew its holdings in Pegasystems by 100.9% in the second quarter. Nordea Investment Management AB now owns 196,065 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $10,492,000 after purchasing an additional 98,468 shares during the period. Herald Investment Management Ltd grew its holdings in Pegasystems by 100.0% in the second quarter. Herald Investment Management Ltd now owns 703,600 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $38,086,000 after purchasing an additional 351,800 shares during the period. Allianz Asset Management GmbH increased its position in Pegasystems by 60.3% during the second quarter. Allianz Asset Management GmbH now owns 240,225 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $13,003,000 after purchasing an additional 90,404 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Convergence Investment Partners LLC purchased a new position in Pegasystems during the second quarter worth approximately $2,653,000. 46.89% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several brokerages have recently issued reports on PEGA. Weiss Ratings reissued a “hold (c+)” rating on shares of Pegasystems in a research note on Monday, December 29th. Barclays boosted their price target on Pegasystems from $58.00 to $67.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Thursday, October 23rd. Royal Bank Of Canada restated an “outperform” rating and issued a $80.00 price objective (up from $70.00) on shares of Pegasystems in a report on Wednesday, October 22nd. Wall Street Zen cut Pegasystems from a “strong-buy” rating to a “buy” rating in a report on Saturday, November 22nd. Finally, Rosenblatt Securities increased their target price on shares of Pegasystems from $65.00 to $70.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Thursday, October 23rd. Nine analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and two have assigned a Hold rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, Pegasystems presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $70.05.

Insider Activity

In other news, CAO Efstathios A. Kouninis sold 4,425 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Monday, October 27th. The shares were sold at an average price of $67.25, for a total value of $297,581.25. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief accounting officer directly owned 206 shares in the company, valued at approximately $13,853.50. This represents a 95.55% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this link. Also, Chairman Alan Trefler sold 45,000 shares of Pegasystems stock in a transaction on Wednesday, January 21st. The stock was sold at an average price of $49.02, for a total transaction of $2,205,900.00. Following the sale, the chairman directly owned 44,394,454 shares in the company, valued at $2,176,216,135.08. This trade represents a 0.10% decrease in their position. The SEC filing for this sale provides additional information. In the last three months, insiders sold 169,272 shares of company stock valued at $9,606,522. 49.70% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Pegasystems Price Performance

Shares of NASDAQ PEGA opened at $50.38 on Friday. Pegasystems Inc. has a 1-year low of $29.84 and a 1-year high of $68.10. The business has a 50-day moving average of $57.19 and a 200-day moving average of $56.76. The company has a market capitalization of $8.55 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 33.81 and a beta of 1.08.

Pegasystems (NASDAQ:PEGA) last announced its earnings results on Tuesday, October 21st. The technology company reported $0.30 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.18 by $0.12. The business had revenue of $381.35 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $351.95 million. Pegasystems had a return on equity of 43.49% and a net margin of 16.05%.The company’s revenue was up 17.3% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period last year, the business posted $0.39 EPS. Research analysts expect that Pegasystems Inc. will post 1.89 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Pegasystems Announces Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, January 16th. Stockholders of record on Friday, January 2nd were paid a dividend of $0.03 per share. The ex-dividend date was Friday, January 2nd. This represents a $0.12 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.2%. Pegasystems’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 8.05%.

Pegasystems Profile

Pegasystems Inc is a software company specializing in customer engagement and digital process automation solutions. Headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Pegasystems develops enterprise applications designed to help organizations streamline operations, manage customer interactions and automate complex workflows. Its platform supports a wide range of use cases, from sales and marketing optimization to case management and robotic process automation.

The core of Pegasystems’ offering is the Pega Platform, a low-code development environment that enables businesses to build and deploy applications with minimal hand-coding.