Legal & General Group Plc Buys Shares of 152,188 Navient Corporation $NAVI

Legal & General Group Plc purchased a new stake in shares of Navient Corporation (NASDAQ:NAVI) during the second quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the SEC. The firm purchased 152,188 shares of the credit services provider’s stock, valued at approximately $1,295,000. Legal & General Group Plc owned about 0.16% of Navient as of its most recent SEC filing.

Other large investors have also recently made changes to their positions in the company. BlackRock Inc. bought a new position in Navient during the second quarter valued at approximately $110,235,000. Orbis Allan Gray Ltd boosted its holdings in Navient by 23.2% in the second quarter. Orbis Allan Gray Ltd now owns 2,848,718 shares of the credit services provider’s stock worth $40,167,000 after purchasing an additional 536,933 shares during the last quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. grew its position in Navient by 20.2% in the 4th quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 2,484,742 shares of the credit services provider’s stock worth $32,302,000 after purchasing an additional 418,161 shares during the period. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. grew its position in Navient by 37.8% in the 4th quarter. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. now owns 1,543,796 shares of the credit services provider’s stock worth $20,069,000 after purchasing an additional 423,381 shares during the period. Finally, Wellington Management Group LLP raised its stake in Navient by 2.5% during the 4th quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP now owns 1,499,113 shares of the credit services provider’s stock valued at $19,488,000 after buying an additional 36,528 shares during the last quarter. 97.14% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of equities analysts have recently issued reports on the company. Weiss Ratings restated a “sell (d)” rating on shares of Navient in a research note on Wednesday, June 24th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. lowered their target price on Navient from $9.50 to $8.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a report on Monday, July 13th. Finally, TD Cowen reissued a “sell” rating on shares of Navient in a research report on Friday, August 7th. Five investment analysts have rated the stock with a Hold rating and four have given a Sell rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, Navient presently has an average rating of “Reduce” and a consensus price target of $9.14.

Navient Stock Performance

Shares of Navient stock opened at $9.63 on Monday. The company’s fifty day simple moving average is $8.86 and its 200-day simple moving average is $8.57. The stock has a market capitalization of $903.10 million, a PE ratio of -19.26 and a beta of 1.18. Navient Corporation has a 1-year low of $7.33 and a 1-year high of $13.84. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 16.73, a current ratio of 10.53 and a quick ratio of 10.53.

Navient (NASDAQ:NAVI) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, August 6th. The credit services provider reported $0.29 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.20 by $0.09. The firm had revenue of $150.00 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $142.87 million. Navient had a negative net margin of 1.64% and a positive return on equity of 4.68%. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm posted $0.20 EPS. As a group, equities analysts anticipate that Navient Corporation will post 0.78 earnings per share for the current year.

Navient Dividend Announcement

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, September 18th. Shareholders of record on Friday, September 4th will be issued a dividend of $0.16 per share. This represents a $0.64 annualized dividend and a yield of 6.6%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, September 4th. Navient’s payout ratio is currently -128.00%.

Navient Profile

Navient Corporation (NASDAQ: NAVI) is a specialized provider of asset management and business processing solutions, with a primary focus on student loan servicing. Established in 2014 through the separation from Sallie Mae, Navient assumed responsibility for servicing federal and private education loans, positioning itself as one of the largest servicers of higher education debt in the United States.

The company’s core activities center on federal student loan servicing under contracts with the U.S.