Equity Investment Corp Decreases Stock Holdings in Williams Companies, Inc. (The) $WMB

Equity Investment Corp decreased its holdings in shares of Williams Companies, Inc. (The) (NYSE:WMB) by 1.4% during the fourth quarter, according to its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The institutional investor owned 1,027,467 shares of the pipeline company’s stock after selling 14,661 shares during the period. Equity Investment Corp owned about 0.08% of Williams Companies worth $61,761,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also recently made changes to their positions in the business. Vanguard Group Inc. lifted its position in shares of Williams Companies by 0.7% during the 4th quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 133,963,343 shares of the pipeline company’s stock valued at $8,052,537,000 after buying an additional 883,245 shares in the last quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP lifted its position in shares of Williams Companies by 15.9% during the 3rd quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP now owns 48,586,299 shares of the pipeline company’s stock valued at $3,077,942,000 after buying an additional 6,668,950 shares in the last quarter. Clearbridge Investments LLC lifted its position in shares of Williams Companies by 21.3% during the 4th quarter. Clearbridge Investments LLC now owns 21,325,482 shares of the pipeline company’s stock valued at $1,281,875,000 after buying an additional 3,748,126 shares in the last quarter. Deutsche Bank AG lifted its position in shares of Williams Companies by 1.2% during the 4th quarter. Deutsche Bank AG now owns 20,036,698 shares of the pipeline company’s stock valued at $1,204,406,000 after buying an additional 239,732 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Invesco Ltd. lifted its position in shares of Williams Companies by 1.1% during the 3rd quarter. Invesco Ltd. now owns 14,575,898 shares of the pipeline company’s stock valued at $923,383,000 after buying an additional 158,077 shares in the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 86.44% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several research firms recently commented on WMB. Scotiabank increased their price objective on Williams Companies from $85.00 to $86.00 and gave the company a “sector outperform” rating in a research note on Tuesday, May 12th. Wall Street Zen raised Williams Companies from a “sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Sunday, April 5th. The Goldman Sachs Group raised Williams Companies from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and set a $82.00 price objective for the company in a research note on Monday, April 20th. Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce increased their price objective on Williams Companies from $83.00 to $85.00 and gave the company an “outperformer” rating in a research note on Tuesday, May 26th. Finally, Jefferies Financial Group increased their price objective on Williams Companies from $81.00 to $83.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, April 10th. Four research analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, fourteen have assigned a Buy rating and two have assigned a Hold rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, Williams Companies currently has a consensus rating of “Buy” and an average price target of $82.40.

Williams Companies Stock Down 0.8%

Shares of WMB opened at $71.66 on Friday. Williams Companies, Inc. has a 52-week low of $55.82 and a 52-week high of $80.07. The company has a market capitalization of $87.54 billion, a PE ratio of 31.43, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.76 and a beta of 0.58. The stock has a fifty day simple moving average of $73.43 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $68.83. The company has a quick ratio of 0.76, a current ratio of 0.83 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.99.

Williams Companies (NYSE:WMB) last issued its earnings results on Monday, May 4th. The pipeline company reported $0.73 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.63 by $0.10. Williams Companies had a return on equity of 18.34% and a net margin of 23.39%.The business had revenue of $3.03 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $3.28 billion. During the same period last year, the company earned $0.60 EPS. The company’s revenue for the quarter was down .6% on a year-over-year basis. Williams Companies has set its FY 2026 guidance at 2.200-2.380 EPS. As a group, equities analysts forecast that Williams Companies, Inc. will post 2.44 EPS for the current year.

Williams Companies Dividend Announcement

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, June 29th. Shareholders of record on Friday, June 12th will be paid a $0.525 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, June 12th. This represents a $2.10 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 2.9%. Williams Companies’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 92.11%.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other news, SVP Glen G. Jasek sold 2,500 shares of the stock in a transaction on Friday, May 15th. The stock was sold at an average price of $78.15, for a total transaction of $195,375.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the senior vice president directly owned 54,101 shares in the company, valued at approximately $4,227,993.15. This represents a 4.42% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, CFO John Dean Porter sold 50,000 shares of the stock in a transaction on Wednesday, May 6th. The stock was sold at an average price of $75.37, for a total value of $3,768,500.00. Following the transaction, the chief financial officer owned 196,567 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $14,815,254.79. This represents a 20.28% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The SEC filing for this sale provides additional information. Insiders sold 68,500 shares of company stock valued at $5,177,835 over the last 90 days. Insiders own 0.47% of the company’s stock.

Williams Companies Company 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.