William Blair Investment Management LLC Purchases New Stake in F5, Inc. $FFIV

William Blair Investment Management LLC acquired a new stake in F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV) during the fourth quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The fund acquired 550,264 shares of the network technology company’s stock, valued at approximately $140,460,000.

Other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Elyxium Wealth LLC acquired a new position in F5 in the 4th quarter valued at $28,000. Abich Financial Wealth Management LLC acquired a new position in F5 in the 3rd quarter valued at $37,000. Root Financial Partners LLC acquired a new position in F5 in the 3rd quarter valued at $49,000. Geneos Wealth Management Inc. grew its holdings in F5 by 288.1% in the 1st quarter. Geneos Wealth Management Inc. now owns 163 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $43,000 after buying an additional 121 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Zions Bancorporation National Association UT grew its holdings in F5 by 400.0% in the 3rd quarter. Zions Bancorporation National Association UT now owns 165 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $53,000 after buying an additional 132 shares in the last quarter. 90.66% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

F5 Stock Performance

FFIV opened at $393.63 on Friday. The firm has a market cap of $22.21 billion, a P/E ratio of 32.29, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 9.05 and a beta of 1.00. F5, Inc. has a 52-week low of $223.76 and a 52-week high of $395.77. The business’s fifty day moving average is $316.75 and its 200-day moving average is $280.86.

F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) last released its earnings results on Tuesday, April 28th. The network technology company reported $3.90 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $3.47 by $0.43. The company had revenue of $811.70 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $783.82 million. F5 had a return on equity of 21.50% and a net margin of 21.96%.F5’s quarterly revenue was up 11.0% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the prior year, the firm posted $3.42 EPS. F5 has set its Q3 2026 guidance at 3.910-4.030 EPS and its FY 2026 guidance at 16.250-16.550 EPS. On average, research analysts predict that F5, Inc. will post 12.79 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Insider Buying and Selling at F5

In related news, CEO Francois Locoh-Donou sold 3,783 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, May 5th. The stock was sold at an average price of $337.39, for a total transaction of $1,276,346.37. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer directly owned 146,989 shares in the company, valued at $49,592,618.71. This represents a 2.51% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this link. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, CFO Edward Cooper Werner sold 1,500 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Friday, May 8th. The stock was sold at an average price of $350.00, for a total value of $525,000.00. Following the sale, the chief financial officer owned 2,906 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $1,017,100. This represents a 34.04% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The SEC filing for this sale provides additional information. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Insiders sold 24,491 shares of company stock worth $7,966,227 over the last quarter. 0.48% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of research analysts have commented on the company. Needham & Company LLC reaffirmed a “hold” rating on shares of F5 in a report on Wednesday, April 29th. Royal Bank Of Canada upped their price objective on F5 from $375.00 to $425.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Tuesday, May 19th. Barclays increased their target price on F5 from $283.00 to $292.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a report on Wednesday, April 29th. Evercore raised F5 from an “in-line” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $475.00 target price on the stock in a report on Monday, May 18th. Finally, Weiss Ratings raised F5 from a “hold (c+)” rating to a “buy (b-)” rating in a report on Monday, March 30th. Six analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, five have given a Hold rating and one has issued a Sell rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, the company currently has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $353.00.

F5 Profile

F5 Inc (NASDAQ:FFIV) specializes in application services and delivery networking, helping organizations ensure the availability, performance and security of their applications. The company’s core offerings include advanced load balancing, traffic management and application security solutions designed to optimize user experiences and protect against threats such as distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks and web application exploits.

At the heart of F5’s product portfolio is the BIG-IP platform, which provides a suite of software modules for local and global traffic management, secure web application firewalling and DNS service delivery.