Bessemer Group Inc. Trims Stock Position in WEX Inc. (NYSE:WEX)

Bessemer Group Inc. lessened its position in shares of WEX Inc. (NYSE:WEX) by 17.5% during the 4th quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The institutional investor owned 648,548 shares of the business services provider’s stock after selling 137,423 shares during the quarter. Bessemer Group Inc.’s holdings in WEX were worth $113,703,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Several other institutional investors have also recently made changes to their positions in WEX. Captrust Financial Advisors raised its position in shares of WEX by 191.9% during the 3rd quarter. Captrust Financial Advisors now owns 3,485 shares of the business services provider’s stock valued at $731,000 after buying an additional 2,291 shares during the period. HighTower Advisors LLC raised its position in WEX by 79.5% in the third quarter. HighTower Advisors LLC now owns 6,436 shares of the business services provider’s stock valued at $1,347,000 after purchasing an additional 2,851 shares during the period. State Street Corp raised its position in WEX by 0.3% in the third quarter. State Street Corp now owns 1,240,953 shares of the business services provider’s stock valued at $260,265,000 after purchasing an additional 3,882 shares during the period. EP Wealth Advisors LLC purchased a new stake in WEX in the third quarter valued at approximately $251,000. Finally, Barclays PLC raised its position in WEX by 38.4% in the third quarter. Barclays PLC now owns 21,535 shares of the business services provider’s stock valued at $4,516,000 after purchasing an additional 5,972 shares during the period. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 97.47% of the company’s stock.

WEX Stock Performance

NYSE:WEX opened at $133.23 on Thursday. The company has a current ratio of 1.02, a quick ratio of 1.04 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 2.07. The firm has a market capitalization of $5.17 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 17.76, a PEG ratio of 2.06 and a beta of 1.33. The firm’s fifty day simple moving average is $152.87 and its 200 day simple moving average is $174.88. WEX Inc. has a twelve month low of $110.45 and a twelve month high of $241.77.

WEX (NYSE:WEX) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, February 5th. The business services provider reported $3.13 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.97 by $0.16. WEX had a net margin of 11.78% and a return on equity of 32.35%. As a group, equities research analysts expect that WEX Inc. will post 14.09 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of analysts have issued reports on the company. Bank of America lowered WEX from a “buy” rating to a “neutral” rating in a research report on Thursday, February 6th. Citigroup lowered WEX from a “buy” rating to a “neutral” rating and cut their target price for the company from $260.00 to $190.00 in a research report on Tuesday, January 14th. Wells Fargo & Company dropped their price target on shares of WEX from $180.00 to $160.00 and set an “equal weight” rating for the company in a research note on Friday, February 7th. Jefferies Financial Group boosted their price target on shares of WEX from $180.00 to $190.00 and gave the stock a “hold” rating in a research note on Wednesday, January 22nd. Finally, UBS Group dropped their price target on shares of WEX from $200.00 to $172.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a research note on Friday, February 7th. Nine investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and three have assigned a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, WEX presently has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $187.80.

About WEX

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.