KLP Kapitalforvaltning AS Purchases Shares of 8,500 WEX Inc. (NYSE:WEX)

KLP Kapitalforvaltning AS purchased a new position in WEX Inc. (NYSE:WEX) during the 4th quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The institutional investor purchased 8,500 shares of the business services provider’s stock, valued at approximately $1,490,000.

Other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also made changes to their positions in the company. Janus Henderson Group PLC lifted its position in shares of WEX by 0.6% in the third quarter. Janus Henderson Group PLC now owns 4,163,678 shares of the business services provider’s stock worth $873,251,000 after buying an additional 25,365 shares in the last quarter. FMR LLC raised its holdings in shares of WEX by 8.8% during the 3rd quarter. FMR LLC now owns 1,555,507 shares of the business services provider’s stock worth $326,237,000 after acquiring an additional 125,262 shares in the last quarter. State Street Corp boosted its position in shares of WEX by 0.3% during the 3rd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 1,240,953 shares of the business services provider’s stock valued at $260,265,000 after acquiring an additional 3,882 shares during the last quarter. River Road Asset Management LLC grew its holdings in shares of WEX by 0.7% in the fourth quarter. River Road Asset Management LLC now owns 725,842 shares of the business services provider’s stock valued at $127,255,000 after purchasing an additional 5,377 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Sei Investments Co. increased its position in WEX by 5.2% in the fourth quarter. Sei Investments Co. now owns 481,490 shares of the business services provider’s stock worth $84,415,000 after purchasing an additional 23,859 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors own 97.47% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several equities analysts have commented on WEX shares. Citigroup lowered shares of WEX from a “buy” rating to a “neutral” rating and lowered their price objective for the company from $260.00 to $190.00 in a research report on Tuesday, January 14th. UBS Group lowered their price objective on WEX from $200.00 to $172.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a research note on Friday, February 7th. Robert W. Baird set a $186.00 target price on WEX in a research report on Tuesday, February 18th. Wells Fargo & Company lowered their target price on shares of WEX from $180.00 to $160.00 and set an “equal weight” rating for the company in a report on Friday, February 7th. Finally, Bank of America downgraded shares of WEX from a “buy” rating to a “neutral” rating in a report on Thursday, February 6th. Nine equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and three have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock has an average rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $187.80.

WEX Trading Down 0.4 %

Shares of WEX opened at $154.69 on Friday. The firm has a market capitalization of $6.00 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 20.62, a PEG ratio of 2.06 and a beta of 1.61. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 2.07, a current ratio of 1.02 and a quick ratio of 1.04. WEX Inc. has a 1-year low of $146.03 and a 1-year high of $244.04. The company has a 50-day moving average of $162.27 and a 200 day moving average of $179.32.

WEX (NYSE:WEX) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, February 5th. The business services provider reported $3.13 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.97 by $0.16. WEX had a net margin of 11.78% and a return on equity of 32.35%. On average, research analysts expect that WEX Inc. will post 14.09 EPS for the current year.

WEX Company Profile

WEX Inc operates a commerce platform in the United States and internationally. The Mobility segment offers fleet vehicle payment solutions, transaction processing, and information management services; and provides account activation and account retention services; authorization and billing inquiries, and account maintenance services; account management; credit and collections services; merchant services; analytics solutions; and ancillary services and offerings.