Segall Bryant & Hamill LLC Makes New $798,000 Investment in Mercury General Co. (NYSE:MCY)

Segall Bryant & Hamill LLC acquired a new stake in Mercury General Co. (NYSE:MCY) in the 4th quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The institutional investor acquired 12,009 shares of the insurance provider’s stock, valued at approximately $798,000.

A number of other institutional investors have also recently made changes to their positions in MCY. Prudential Financial Inc. raised its holdings in Mercury General by 27.9% during the 4th quarter. Prudential Financial Inc. now owns 79,677 shares of the insurance provider’s stock valued at $5,297,000 after buying an additional 17,370 shares during the last quarter. Sheets Smith Investment Management purchased a new position in shares of Mercury General in the fourth quarter valued at about $1,282,000. Vanguard Group Inc. raised its stake in shares of Mercury General by 4.7% during the fourth quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 3,670,014 shares of the insurance provider’s stock valued at $243,983,000 after acquiring an additional 165,629 shares during the last quarter. LPL Financial LLC boosted its holdings in shares of Mercury General by 14.8% during the fourth quarter. LPL Financial LLC now owns 14,081 shares of the insurance provider’s stock worth $936,000 after purchasing an additional 1,813 shares during the period. Finally, KLP Kapitalforvaltning AS bought a new stake in shares of Mercury General in the fourth quarter worth about $406,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 42.39% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

MCY has been the subject of a number of recent analyst reports. StockNews.com lowered Mercury General from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Thursday, February 13th. Raymond James upgraded shares of Mercury General from an “outperform” rating to a “strong-buy” rating and lifted their price target for the company from $70.00 to $80.00 in a report on Wednesday, February 12th.

Mercury General Price Performance

MCY stock opened at $56.30 on Friday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.29, a current ratio of 0.34 and a quick ratio of 0.34. Mercury General Co. has a 1 year low of $44.19 and a 1 year high of $80.72. The firm has a 50-day moving average of $53.26 and a 200 day moving average of $62.30. The company has a market cap of $3.12 billion, a P/E ratio of 6.66 and a beta of 0.80.

Mercury General (NYSE:MCY) last announced its earnings results on Tuesday, February 11th. The insurance provider reported $2.78 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $1.94 by $0.84. Mercury General had a return on equity of 22.54% and a net margin of 8.55%. On average, sell-side analysts forecast that Mercury General Co. will post -0.5 EPS for the current year.

Mercury General Increases Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, March 27th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, March 13th were issued a dividend of $0.3175 per share. This represents a $1.27 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 2.26%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, March 13th. This is a boost from Mercury General’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.32. Mercury General’s payout ratio is 15.03%.

Mercury General Company Profile

Mercury General Corporation, together with its subsidiaries, engages in writing personal automobile insurance in the United States. The company also writes homeowners, commercial automobile, commercial property, mechanical protection, and umbrella insurance products. Its automobile insurance products include collision, property damage, bodily injury, comprehensive, personal injury protection, underinsured and uninsured motorist, and other hazards; and homeowners insurance products comprise dwelling, liability, personal property, and other coverages.