Booking Holdings Inc. $BKNG Shares Sold by Boston Partners

Boston Partners decreased its position in shares of Booking Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:BKNG) by 4.6% during the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund owned 96,208 shares of the business services provider’s stock after selling 4,598 shares during the quarter. Boston Partners owned approximately 0.30% of Booking worth $515,191,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

A number of other institutional investors have also recently made changes to their positions in BKNG. Titan Investment Solutions Ltd acquired a new position in Booking in the fourth quarter valued at $25,379,000. Cardano Risk Management B.V. raised its stake in Booking by 862.0% during the 4th quarter. Cardano Risk Management B.V. now owns 218,080 shares of the business services provider’s stock valued at $1,167,890,000 after acquiring an additional 195,411 shares during the last quarter. Van Lanschot Kempen Investment Management N.V. raised its stake in Booking by 10.5% during the 4th quarter. Van Lanschot Kempen Investment Management N.V. now owns 92,287 shares of the business services provider’s stock valued at $494,227,000 after acquiring an additional 8,770 shares during the last quarter. L1 Capital International Pty Ltd lifted its stake in shares of Booking by 366.9% in the 4th quarter. L1 Capital International Pty Ltd now owns 23,665 shares of the business services provider’s stock worth $126,734,000 after acquiring an additional 18,597 shares during the period. Finally, Sumitomo Life Insurance Co. lifted its stake in shares of Booking by 0.5% in the 4th quarter. Sumitomo Life Insurance Co. now owns 1,104 shares of the business services provider’s stock worth $5,912,000 after acquiring an additional 6 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 92.42% of the company’s stock.

Insider Transactions at Booking

In other news, CEO Glenn D. Fogel sold 16,726 shares of the stock in a transaction on Wednesday, April 15th. The shares were sold at an average price of $185.36, for a total transaction of $3,100,331.36. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer owned 298,174 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $55,269,532.64. This represents a 5.31% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this hyperlink. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, Director Vanessa Ames Wittman sold 1,125 shares of the stock in a transaction on Friday, April 17th. The stock was sold at an average price of $192.00, for a total transaction of $216,000.00. Following the sale, the director directly owned 16,050 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $3,081,600. This represents a 6.55% decrease in their position. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Insiders sold 97,076 shares of company stock valued at $16,417,121 over the last quarter. Corporate insiders own 0.16% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

BKNG has been the subject of a number of recent research reports. Evercore set a $245.00 price objective on shares of Booking in a research note on Wednesday, April 29th. Morgan Stanley upgraded Booking from an “equal weight” rating to an “overweight” rating and reduced their target price for the company from $246.00 to $220.00 in a research note on Monday, February 23rd. KeyCorp reduced their target price on Booking from $260.00 to $237.40 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a research note on Thursday, February 19th. Sanford C. Bernstein reiterated a “market perform” rating on shares of Booking in a research note on Thursday. Finally, Susquehanna set a $260.00 price target on Booking in a research report on Friday, February 20th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty-eight have given a Buy rating and eight have issued a Hold rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $227.14.

Booking Stock Up 0.8%

Shares of BKNG opened at $164.94 on Friday. Booking Holdings Inc. has a 12-month low of $150.14 and a 12-month high of $233.58. The firm has a market capitalization of $127.81 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 21.70, a P/E/G ratio of 0.98 and a beta of 1.08. The stock’s 50-day moving average price is $169.43 and its 200 day moving average price is $184.10.

Booking (NASDAQ:BKNG) last released its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, April 28th. The business services provider reported $1.14 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.08 by $0.06. The firm had revenue of $5.53 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $5.52 billion. Booking had a net margin of 22.23% and a negative return on equity of 117.14%. The company’s revenue for the quarter was up 16.2% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the business earned $0.99 earnings per share. Equities research analysts expect that Booking Holdings Inc. will post 10.44 EPS for the current year.

Booking Announces Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Tuesday, June 30th. Shareholders of record on Friday, June 5th will be paid a $0.42 dividend. This represents a $1.68 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.0%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, June 5th. Booking’s payout ratio is presently 22.11%.

Booking Company Profile

Booking Holdings Inc is a global online travel company that operates a portfolio of consumer brands and technology platforms that facilitate the search for and booking of travel services. The company’s businesses focus on accommodations, transportation and related travel services through consumer-facing websites and apps as well as partner distribution channels. Booking Holdings was originally founded as Priceline in the late 1990s and adopted the Booking Holdings name in 2018; it is headquartered in Norwalk, Connecticut.

Its core offerings include online reservations for hotels, vacation rentals and other lodging; flight and car rental search and booking; and ancillary services that support travel planning and on-property experiences.