Westfield Capital Management Co. LP Grows Stake in Williams Companies, Inc. (The) $WMB

Westfield Capital Management Co. LP lifted its holdings in Williams Companies, Inc. (The) (NYSE:WMB) by 13.4% in the third quarter, according to its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The institutional investor owned 201,065 shares of the pipeline company’s stock after purchasing an additional 23,747 shares during the quarter. Westfield Capital Management Co. LP’s holdings in Williams Companies were worth $12,737,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Several other hedge funds also recently added to or reduced their stakes in WMB. LRI Investments LLC boosted its stake in Williams Companies by 8.8% in the 3rd quarter. LRI Investments LLC now owns 2,169 shares of the pipeline company’s stock worth $137,000 after purchasing an additional 176 shares in the last quarter. Patten & Patten Inc. TN lifted its stake in shares of Williams Companies by 1.7% during the third quarter. Patten & Patten Inc. TN now owns 11,087 shares of the pipeline company’s stock worth $702,000 after buying an additional 187 shares during the period. Chesley Taft & Associates LLC grew its holdings in shares of Williams Companies by 1.9% during the third quarter. Chesley Taft & Associates LLC now owns 10,420 shares of the pipeline company’s stock valued at $660,000 after buying an additional 199 shares during the last quarter. Bank of Jackson Hole Trust raised its stake in Williams Companies by 42.5% in the 2nd quarter. Bank of Jackson Hole Trust now owns 671 shares of the pipeline company’s stock worth $42,000 after acquiring an additional 200 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Tradewinds Capital Management LLC grew its stake in Williams Companies by 9.0% during the 3rd quarter. Tradewinds Capital Management LLC now owns 2,425 shares of the pipeline company’s stock valued at $154,000 after purchasing an additional 200 shares during the last quarter. 86.44% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several equities analysts recently weighed in on WMB shares. Weiss Ratings reiterated a “buy (b)” rating on shares of Williams Companies in a report on Monday, December 29th. Wells Fargo & Company upped their price objective on Williams Companies from $71.00 to $80.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Wednesday, February 11th. Scotiabank raised shares of Williams Companies from a “sector perform” rating to a “sector outperform” rating and raised their price objective for the stock from $66.00 to $84.00 in a research note on Friday, February 13th. Tudor Pickering upgraded shares of Williams Companies from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Monday, December 1st. Finally, TD Cowen raised their price target on shares of Williams Companies from $69.00 to $70.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Thursday, November 6th. Two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, thirteen have assigned a Buy rating and four have issued a Hold rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $75.36.

Williams Companies Trading Up 1.1%

Shares of NYSE:WMB opened at $74.77 on Friday. The business’s 50 day moving average price is $65.02 and its 200-day moving average price is $61.66. Williams Companies, Inc. has a 1 year low of $51.58 and a 1 year high of $75.49. The firm has a market capitalization of $91.34 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 34.94, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.32 and a beta of 0.65. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.83, a current ratio of 0.53 and a quick ratio of 0.48.

Williams Companies (NYSE:WMB) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, February 10th. The pipeline company reported $0.55 earnings per share for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.57 by ($0.02). The company had revenue of $3.20 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $3.10 billion. Williams Companies had a net margin of 21.90% and a return on equity of 17.32%. During the same period in the prior year, the business posted $0.47 earnings per share. Williams Companies has set its FY 2026 guidance at 2.200-2.380 EPS. On average, equities research analysts forecast that Williams Companies, Inc. will post 2.08 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Williams Companies Increases Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, March 30th. Shareholders of record on Friday, March 13th will be issued a $0.525 dividend. This represents a $2.10 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 2.8%. The ex-dividend date is Friday, March 13th. This is an increase from Williams Companies’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.50. Williams Companies’s payout ratio is 93.46%.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, SVP Terrance Lane Wilson sold 27,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, February 24th. The shares were sold at an average price of $72.92, for a total transaction of $1,968,840.00. Following the completion of the sale, the senior vice president owned 293,159 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $21,377,154.28. This represents a 8.43% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this hyperlink. In the last 90 days, insiders sold 31,000 shares of company stock valued at $2,225,420. Company insiders own 0.44% of the company’s stock.

Williams Companies Profile

Williams Companies, Inc (NYSE: WMB) is a U.S.-based energy infrastructure company focused on the midstream segment of the natural gas value chain. The company develops, owns and operates assets that gather, process, transport and store natural gas and natural gas liquids (NGLs). Its operations support the movement of gas from production areas to end users including utilities, power generators, industrial customers and export facilities.

Williams’s product and service offering includes interstate and intrastate pipeline transmission, gas-gathering systems, processing facilities that remove impurities and separate NGLs, storage services and fractionation and transportation of NGL products.