Cornercap Investment Counsel Inc. Purchases New Stake in Essent Group Ltd. (NYSE:ESNT)

Cornercap Investment Counsel Inc. purchased a new stake in Essent Group Ltd. (NYSE:ESNT) during the 4th quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The firm purchased 11,771 shares of the financial services provider’s stock, valued at approximately $621,000.

Several other hedge funds have also added to or reduced their stakes in the company. BlackRock Inc. boosted its holdings in Essent Group by 0.5% in the first quarter. BlackRock Inc. now owns 14,995,922 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $617,982,000 after acquiring an additional 71,629 shares during the last quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. boosted its holdings in Essent Group by 2.4% in the third quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 11,160,781 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $389,177,000 after acquiring an additional 261,537 shares during the last quarter. Capital World Investors boosted its holdings in Essent Group by 10.2% in the first quarter. Capital World Investors now owns 8,781,249 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $361,875,000 after acquiring an additional 815,259 shares during the last quarter. State Street Corp boosted its holdings in Essent Group by 7.0% in the first quarter. State Street Corp now owns 4,375,800 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $180,327,000 after acquiring an additional 286,764 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Macquarie Group Ltd. boosted its holdings in Essent Group by 1.1% during the first quarter. Macquarie Group Ltd. now owns 3,932,841 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $157,510,000 after buying an additional 43,379 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors own 93.00% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of equities analysts have issued reports on the company. StockNews.com cut Essent Group from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Monday, March 4th. Royal Bank of Canada raised their target price on Essent Group from $56.00 to $58.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Monday, February 12th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. cut Essent Group from an “overweight” rating to a “neutral” rating and raised their target price for the stock from $58.00 to $61.00 in a report on Wednesday, April 3rd. Finally, Keefe, Bruyette & Woods raised their target price on Essent Group from $62.00 to $64.00 and gave the stock a “market perform” rating in a report on Thursday, April 4th. Five equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and three have assigned a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, Essent Group presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $58.38.

Essent Group Stock Down 1.1 %

NYSE:ESNT opened at $52.67 on Wednesday. The firm has a market capitalization of $5.63 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 8.10, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 0.81 and a beta of 1.04. Essent Group Ltd. has a twelve month low of $40.33 and a twelve month high of $59.90. The stock’s 50 day moving average price is $54.85 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $51.99.

Essent Group (NYSE:ESNT) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Friday, February 9th. The financial services provider reported $1.64 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $1.59 by $0.05. Essent Group had a return on equity of 14.44% and a net margin of 62.75%. The firm had revenue of $297.30 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $286.18 million. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm earned $1.37 EPS. The business’s quarterly revenue was up 29.3% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, analysts anticipate that Essent Group Ltd. will post 6.56 earnings per share for the current year.

Essent Group Increases Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, March 22nd. Stockholders of record on Wednesday, March 13th were paid a dividend of $0.28 per share. This is an increase from Essent Group’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.25. This represents a $1.12 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 2.13%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Tuesday, March 12th. Essent Group’s payout ratio is currently 17.23%.

Insider Transactions at Essent Group

In other news, SVP Mary Lourdes Gibbons sold 5,000 shares of Essent Group stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, January 19th. The stock was sold at an average price of $55.00, for a total transaction of $275,000.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the senior vice president now directly owns 247,969 shares in the company, valued at approximately $13,638,295. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this hyperlink. 3.20% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Essent Group Profile

Essent Group Ltd., through its subsidiaries, provides private mortgage insurance and reinsurance for mortgages secured by residential properties located in the United States. Its mortgage insurance products include primary, pool, and master policy. The company also provides information technology maintenance and development services; customer support-related services; underwriting consulting; and contract underwriting services, as well as risk management products and title insurance and settlement services.