179,731 Shares in Arcos Dorados Holdings Inc. $ARCO Acquired by Epoch Investment Partners Inc.

Epoch Investment Partners Inc. purchased a new stake in Arcos Dorados Holdings Inc. (NYSE:ARCO) in the 2nd quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The fund purchased 179,731 shares of the restaurant operator’s stock, valued at approximately $1,418,000.

A number of other large investors also recently made changes to their positions in ARCO. Itau Unibanco Holding S.A. acquired a new stake in shares of Arcos Dorados during the first quarter worth $73,000. Mraz Amerine & Associates Inc. purchased a new position in Arcos Dorados during the second quarter worth about $120,000. Olympiad Research LP purchased a new position in Arcos Dorados during the second quarter worth about $140,000. R Squared Ltd boosted its stake in Arcos Dorados by 66.8% in the 2nd quarter. R Squared Ltd now owns 19,681 shares of the restaurant operator’s stock worth $155,000 after buying an additional 7,881 shares during the last quarter. Finally, HighTower Advisors LLC grew its holdings in Arcos Dorados by 36.2% in the 1st quarter. HighTower Advisors LLC now owns 22,543 shares of the restaurant operator’s stock valued at $182,000 after buying an additional 5,987 shares during the period. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 55.91% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several brokerages have recently weighed in on ARCO. Wall Street Zen upgraded shares of Arcos Dorados from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a report on Saturday, November 15th. Zacks Research raised Arcos Dorados from a “strong sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Friday, November 21st. Weiss Ratings downgraded Arcos Dorados from a “hold (c-)” rating to a “sell (d+)” rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 8th. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. dropped their price target on Arcos Dorados from $8.80 to $8.70 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a research note on Tuesday, November 11th. Two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Hold rating and one has issued a Sell rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, Arcos Dorados currently has a consensus rating of “Reduce” and an average target price of $8.70.

Arcos Dorados Stock Down 2.9%

Shares of NYSE ARCO opened at $7.41 on Friday. The stock has a fifty day moving average price of $7.15 and a 200 day moving average price of $7.21. The company has a current ratio of 0.89, a quick ratio of 0.81 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.32. Arcos Dorados Holdings Inc. has a 12-month low of $6.51 and a 12-month high of $8.52. The company has a market cap of $1.56 billion, a P/E ratio of 6.33, a P/E/G ratio of 3.79 and a beta of 0.46.

Arcos Dorados (NYSE:ARCO) last issued its earnings results on Wednesday, November 12th. The restaurant operator reported $0.12 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.10 by $0.02. The company had revenue of $1.19 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.28 billion. Arcos Dorados had a return on equity of 20.42% and a net margin of 5.39%.The company’s revenue was up 5.2% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business earned $0.17 earnings per share. Research analysts anticipate that Arcos Dorados Holdings Inc. will post 0.63 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Arcos Dorados Profile

Arcos Dorados Holdings Inc operates as a franchisee of McDonald’s restaurants. It has the exclusive right to own, operate, and grant franchises of McDonald’s restaurants in 20 countries and territories in Latin America and the Caribbean, including Argentina, Aruba, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Curacao, Ecuador, French Guiana, Guadeloupe, Martinique, Mexico, Panama, Peru, Puerto Rico, Trinidad and Tobago, Uruguay, the U.S.