Legal & General Group Plc Sells 49,734 Shares of New Mountain Finance Co. (NASDAQ:NMFC)

Legal & General Group Plc trimmed its position in shares of New Mountain Finance Co. (NASDAQ:NMFC) by 6.5% during the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the SEC. The institutional investor owned 713,975 shares of the company’s stock after selling 49,734 shares during the quarter. Legal & General Group Plc’s holdings in New Mountain Finance were worth $8,036,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also recently made changes to their positions in the company. Jane Street Group LLC bought a new stake in shares of New Mountain Finance during the third quarter valued at approximately $375,000. Rockingstone Advisors LLC boosted its holdings in shares of New Mountain Finance by 79.1% during the 4th quarter. Rockingstone Advisors LLC now owns 282,107 shares of the company’s stock valued at $3,177,000 after buying an additional 124,599 shares in the last quarter. Strategic Financial Concepts LLC purchased a new stake in shares of New Mountain Finance in the 4th quarter worth about $208,000. Raymond James Financial Inc. purchased a new position in New Mountain Finance during the 4th quarter valued at about $944,000. Finally, Union Bancaire Privee UBP SA bought a new stake in New Mountain Finance during the fourth quarter worth about $309,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 32.08% of the company’s stock.

New Mountain Finance Trading Up 2.6 %

NASDAQ NMFC opened at $9.74 on Friday. New Mountain Finance Co. has a 12 month low of $8.84 and a 12 month high of $12.81. The company has a current ratio of 2.23, a quick ratio of 2.23 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.46. The stock’s fifty day moving average price is $10.90 and its 200-day moving average price is $11.28. The stock has a market cap of $1.05 billion, a P/E ratio of 9.28 and a beta of 0.84.

New Mountain Finance (NASDAQ:NMFC) last released its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, February 26th. The company reported $0.32 earnings per share for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.33 by ($0.01). The firm had revenue of $92.89 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $93.23 million. New Mountain Finance had a net margin of 30.28% and a return on equity of 11.25%. As a group, equities analysts forecast that New Mountain Finance Co. will post 1.39 EPS for the current fiscal year.

New Mountain Finance Cuts Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, March 31st. Shareholders of record on Monday, March 17th were issued a $0.32 dividend. This represents a $1.28 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 13.14%. The ex-dividend date was Monday, March 17th. New Mountain Finance’s payout ratio is 123.08%.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other New Mountain Finance news, Director David Ogens acquired 5,000 shares of New Mountain Finance stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, March 4th. The stock was bought at an average cost of $11.44 per share, for a total transaction of $57,200.00. Following the acquisition, the director now owns 179,020 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $2,047,988.80. This represents a 2.87 % increase in their ownership of the stock. The purchase was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Corporate insiders own 11.71% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Separately, Keefe, Bruyette & Woods decreased their target price on shares of New Mountain Finance from $12.00 to $11.00 and set a “market perform” rating for the company in a research note on Tuesday, April 8th.

New Mountain Finance Profile

New Mountain Finance Corporation (Nasdaq: NMFC), a business development company is a private equity / buyouts and loan fund specializes in directly investing and lending to middle market companies in defensive growth industries. The fund prefers investing in buyout and middle market companies. It also makes investments in debt securities at all levels of the capital structure including first and second lien debt, unsecured notes, and mezzanine securities.