ESAB Co. (NYSE:ESAB) Short Interest Update

ESAB Co. (NYSE:ESAB - Get Free Report) was the target of a significant decline in short interest in the month of December. As of December 15th, there was short interest totalling 616,500 shares, a decline of 5.5% from the November 30th total of 652,700 shares. Approximately 1.1% of the shares of the company are short sold. Based on an average daily trading volume, of 276,800 shares, the short-interest ratio is currently 2.2 days.

Insider Transactions at ESAB

In other ESAB news, CFO Kevin J. Johnson sold 5,044 shares of the company's stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, October 29th. The stock was sold at an average price of $125.00, for a total value of $630,500.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief financial officer now directly owns 11,433 shares in the company, valued at $1,429,125. This represents a 30.61 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, CEO Shyam Kambeyanda sold 59,120 shares of the business's stock in a transaction on Tuesday, October 29th. The stock was sold at an average price of $122.96, for a total value of $7,269,395.20. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 53,902 shares in the company, valued at $6,627,789.92. This represents a 52.31 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last three months, insiders sold 68,418 shares of company stock worth $8,431,773. Company insiders own 7.00% of the company's stock.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in the stock. FMR LLC raised its stake in shares of ESAB by 6.2% in the third quarter. FMR LLC now owns 2,196,522 shares of the company's stock worth $233,512,000 after acquiring an additional 127,714 shares during the last quarter. JPMorgan Chase & Co. increased its stake in shares of ESAB by 21.6% in the 3rd quarter. JPMorgan Chase & Co. now owns 1,900,115 shares of the company's stock valued at $202,001,000 after buying an additional 337,983 shares during the period. State Street Corp increased its stake in shares of ESAB by 3.4% in the 3rd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 1,692,161 shares of the company's stock valued at $180,028,000 after buying an additional 55,458 shares during the period. Geode Capital Management LLC raised its position in shares of ESAB by 19.7% during the third quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 1,160,056 shares of the company's stock worth $123,353,000 after acquiring an additional 190,583 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Champlain Investment Partners LLC lifted its stake in shares of ESAB by 33.5% during the third quarter. Champlain Investment Partners LLC now owns 1,081,639 shares of the company's stock valued at $114,989,000 after acquiring an additional 271,459 shares during the period. 91.13% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several brokerages have recently commented on ESAB. Evercore ISI downgraded ESAB from an "in-line" rating to an "underperform" rating and upped their target price for the company from $102.00 to $122.00 in a report on Wednesday, November 13th. Jefferies Financial Group started coverage on shares of ESAB in a research note on Thursday, December 12th. They set a "buy" rating and a $160.00 price objective for the company. Oppenheimer reissued an "outperform" rating and issued a $144.00 target price (up from $138.00) on shares of ESAB in a research report on Friday, November 8th. Stifel Nicolaus downgraded shares of ESAB from a "buy" rating to a "hold" rating and reduced their price target for the company from $138.00 to $130.00 in a research report on Monday, November 18th. Finally, Loop Capital lifted their price objective on shares of ESAB from $105.00 to $120.00 and gave the stock a "hold" rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 30th. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, two have issued a hold rating and four have given a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company has an average rating of "Hold" and an average target price of $133.43.

ESAB Stock Performance

Shares of ESAB stock traded down $0.25 during midday trading on Wednesday, hitting $119.94. The company had a trading volume of 152,624 shares, compared to its average volume of 254,981. The stock has a market cap of $7.25 billion, a PE ratio of 28.09, a P/E/G ratio of 2.25 and a beta of 1.34. ESAB has a 1-year low of $82.44 and a 1-year high of $135.97. The business's 50 day simple moving average is $125.49 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $109.00. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.58, a current ratio of 1.92 and a quick ratio of 1.25.

ESAB (NYSE:ESAB - Get Free Report) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, October 29th. The company reported $1.25 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.12 by $0.13. The firm had revenue of $673.00 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $620.50 million. ESAB had a return on equity of 17.27% and a net margin of 9.47%. The company's quarterly revenue was down 1.2% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the company posted $1.08 earnings per share. As a group, equities analysts predict that ESAB will post 4.94 EPS for the current fiscal year.

ESAB Dividend Announcement

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, January 17th. Investors of record on Tuesday, December 31st will be paid a $0.08 dividend. This represents a $0.32 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.27%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Tuesday, December 31st. ESAB's dividend payout ratio is 7.49%.

About ESAB

ESAB Corporation engages in the formulation, development, manufacture, and supply of consumable products and equipment for use in cutting, joining, automated welding, and gas control equipment. Its comprehensive range of welding consumables includes electrodes, cored and solid wires, and fluxes using a range of specialty and other materials; and cutting consumables comprising electrodes, nozzles, shields, and tips.