Bollard Group LLC Decreases Position in Mplx Lp $MPLX

Bollard Group LLC lowered its stake in shares of Mplx Lp (NYSE:MPLX) by 13.2% in the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The fund owned 353,420 shares of the pipeline company’s stock after selling 53,894 shares during the period. Mplx accounts for 0.5% of Bollard Group LLC’s investment portfolio, making the stock its 28th biggest holding. Bollard Group LLC’s holdings in Mplx were worth $18,862,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission.

Several other large investors also recently modified their holdings of the stock. Invesco Ltd. increased its stake in shares of Mplx by 0.7% during the 3rd quarter. Invesco Ltd. now owns 19,561,938 shares of the pipeline company’s stock worth $977,119,000 after purchasing an additional 143,361 shares during the last quarter. Bank of America Corp DE increased its stake in shares of Mplx by 8.3% during the 2nd quarter. Bank of America Corp DE now owns 9,873,619 shares of the pipeline company’s stock worth $508,590,000 after purchasing an additional 757,569 shares during the last quarter. MIRAE ASSET GLOBAL ETFS HOLDINGS Ltd. increased its stake in shares of Mplx by 4.4% during the 3rd quarter. MIRAE ASSET GLOBAL ETFS HOLDINGS Ltd. now owns 7,060,024 shares of the pipeline company’s stock worth $352,648,000 after purchasing an additional 300,321 shares during the last quarter. Morgan Stanley increased its stake in shares of Mplx by 23.7% during the 4th quarter. Morgan Stanley now owns 5,763,110 shares of the pipeline company’s stock worth $307,577,000 after purchasing an additional 1,104,510 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Energy Income Partners LLC increased its stake in shares of Mplx by 2.1% during the 3rd quarter. Energy Income Partners LLC now owns 5,659,885 shares of the pipeline company’s stock worth $282,711,000 after purchasing an additional 118,090 shares during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 24.25% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several brokerages have recently issued reports on MPLX. Barclays raised their price target on shares of Mplx from $58.00 to $59.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research note on Thursday, May 14th. Stifel Nicolaus raised their price target on shares of Mplx from $57.00 to $59.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Wednesday, March 4th. The Goldman Sachs Group raised their price target on shares of Mplx from $55.00 to $63.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Monday, April 20th. Wall Street Zen lowered shares of Mplx from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Saturday, April 11th. Finally, UBS Group lifted their price objective on shares of Mplx from $64.00 to $73.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Monday, March 16th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, seven have issued a Buy rating and five have assigned a Hold rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $61.60.

Mplx Price Performance

Mplx stock opened at $56.65 on Friday. Mplx Lp has a 52 week low of $47.80 and a 52 week high of $59.98. The business has a 50-day simple moving average of $55.63 and a 200 day simple moving average of $55.82. The company has a quick ratio of 1.05, a current ratio of 1.10 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.71. The stock has a market cap of $57.48 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 12.26, a PEG ratio of 5.46 and a beta of 0.48.

Mplx (NYSE:MPLX) last posted its earnings results on Tuesday, May 5th. The pipeline company reported $0.90 EPS for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $1.05 by ($0.15). Mplx had a return on equity of 32.74% and a net margin of 36.38%.The business had revenue of $2.86 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $3.09 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm earned $1.10 earnings per share. Mplx’s quarterly revenue was down 2.8% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, research analysts forecast that Mplx Lp will post 4.22 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Mplx Announces Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, May 15th. Investors of record on Friday, May 8th were given a dividend of $1.0765 per share. This represents a $4.31 annualized dividend and a yield of 7.6%. The ex-dividend date was Friday, May 8th. Mplx’s payout ratio is presently 93.29%.

About Mplx

MPLX LP (NYSE: MPLX) is a midstream master limited partnership that owns, operates and develops energy infrastructure primarily across the United States. The company provides a range of midstream services including the gathering, transportation, storage and distribution of crude oil, refined petroleum products, natural gas and natural gas liquids (NGLs). MPLX also operates processing and fractionation facilities and supplies logistics services that connect producers, refiners and end-use markets.

The partnership’s asset base includes pipelines, storage terminals, rail and marine facilities, natural gas processing plants and NGL fractionators.