Shares of Matthews International Co. ( NASDAQ:MATW – Get Free Report ) gapped up prior to trading on Friday . The stock had previously closed at $25.49, but opened at $29.75. Matthews International shares last traded at $31.11, with a volume of 113,004 shares. Analysts Set New Price Targets Separately, B. Riley dropped their price target on Matthews International from $54.00 to $40.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research note on Thursday, September 26th. Get Our Latest Research Report on Matthews International Matthews International Stock Up 21.0 % Matthews International Increases Dividend The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, December 16th. Stockholders of record on Monday, December 2nd will be issued a dividend of $0.25 per share. This represents a $1.00 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 3.24%. This is a boost from Matthews International’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.24. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Monday, December 2nd. Matthews International’s dividend payout ratio is -49.74%. Institutional Trading of Matthews International Hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of the company. Allspring Global Investments Holdings LLC raised its holdings in shares of Matthews International by 8.5% during the 3rd quarter. Allspring Global Investments Holdings LLC now owns 708,352 shares of the company’s stock worth $16,434,000 after acquiring an additional 55,687 shares in the last quarter. Barington Capital Group L.P. raised its holdings in shares of Matthews International by 18.1% during the 2nd quarter. Barington Capital Group L.P. now owns 385,000 shares of the company’s stock worth $9,644,000 after acquiring an additional 59,000 shares in the last quarter. AQR Capital Management LLC raised its holdings in shares of Matthews International by 136.2% during the 2nd quarter. AQR Capital Management LLC now owns 23,239 shares of the company’s stock worth $582,000 after acquiring an additional 13,399 shares in the last quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD raised its holdings in Matthews International by 1.6% during the 1st quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD now owns 68,771 shares of the company’s stock valued at $2,138,000 after buying an additional 1,063 shares during the period. Finally, Comerica Bank raised its holdings in Matthews International by 73.9% during the 1st quarter. Comerica Bank now owns 24,246 shares of the company’s stock valued at $754,000 after buying an additional 10,304 shares during the period. 83.08% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors. Matthews International Company Profile ( Get Free Report ) Matthews International Corporation provides brand solutions, memorialization products, and industrial technologies worldwide. It operates through three segments: Memorialization, Industrial Technologies, and SGK Brand Solutions. The Memorialization segment provides bronze and granite memorials, upright granite memorials and monuments, concrete burial vaults, cremation memorialization products, granite benches, flower vases, crypt plates and letters, cremation urns, niche units, cemetery features, and statues, as well as bronze plaques, letters, emblems, vases, lights and photo ceramics, granite monuments, mausoleums, crypts, and flush memorials. Recommended Stories Receive News & Ratings for Matthews International Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Matthews International and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter .
Michael Croley | (TNS) Bloomberg News In the old days of 2016, when golfers visited the Dormie Club in West End, North Carolina — 15 minutes from the hotbed of American golf, Pinehurst — they were greeted by a small, single-wide trailer and a rugged pine straw parking lot. Related Articles Travel | A preview of some stunning hotels and resorts opening in 2025 Travel | Travel scams that can hurt your credit or finances Travel | Travel: Paddle the Loxahatchee River, one of two National Wild and Scenic Rivers in Florida Travel | 7 family-friendly ski resorts in the US that won’t break the bank Travel | It’s beginning to look like another record for holiday travel That trailer is now long gone. A gate has been installed at the club’s entrance and a long driveway leads to a grand turnaround that sweeps you past a new modern clubhouse that’s all right angles, with floor-to-ceiling glass. Seconds after you exit your car, valets are zipping up in golf carts, taking your name, then your bags, handing you keys to your own golf cart, and then zipping off to drop your luggage in the four-bedroom cottage where you’ll stay. A short walk past an expansive putting green you’ll find the pro shop — and then you’ll see the club’s most elegant feature: its golf course. The changes have all come about because Dormie Club was acquired in 2017 by the Dormie Network, a national group that owns seven private golf facilities from Nebraska to New Jersey. (“Dormie” is a word for being ahead in golf — the names were coincidences.) A key to the network’s success has been its ability to find clubs ripe for acquisition, with outstanding golf courses and existing on-site lodging or the room to build it, says Zach Peed, president of the company and its driving force. After investing in Arbor Links Golf Club in Nebraska City, Nebraska, in late 2015, Peed believed he saw an opening in the golf market: a new model of hospitality for traveling professionals who wanted a pure golf experience that eschewed the pools and pickleball courts of their home clubs. His clubs would become dream golf-only getaways for avid players and their pals. “Dormie Network’s concept was sparked by having played competitive golf in college, combined with an element of experiencing and understanding hospitality,” says Peed. “It made sense to blend the two to create golf trips that had more value than just playing golf. We want genuine hospitality to help create unforgettable memories and new friendships.” Part of that formula has been in the lodging strategy; in North Carolina, 15 four-bedroom cottages now are a short golf cart ride from the main clubhouse. In each, golfers all have their own king-size bed and en suite bathroom. A large common room is dominated by a flatscreen television along with a well-stocked bar and snacks. That ability to be both social, or tucked away in your room, extends to the expansive new clubhouse, where a high-ceilinged bar area with blond wood creates an inviting space for dining and drinking, and several hideaway rooms allow for more private diners with just your group. So far, their commitment to hospitality has been helping them expand in both membership and club usage in the increasingly competitive market for traveling golfers. Major players such as Bandon Dunes, Pinehurst Resort, and the Cabot Collection have created — or renovated — a new paradigm where golfers get dining and lodging that’s as showcase-worthy as the courses they play. Comfortable sheets and options beyond pub food aren’t luxuries anymore, but staples for many group trips. Dormie has answered that call by focusing on both the big details and the small ones, like having the dew wiped off each golf cart at dawn outside guest cottages before the day begins or having a tray of cocktails delivered to golfers as their final putt falls on the 18th green. These touches may seem over-the-top, but they stand out in a world where golf travel is increasingly popular — and expensive — after the pandemic lockdowns. Since 2020 there has been an explosion in participation in the sport, with new golfers picking up the game and avid golfers playing more: According to the National Golf Foundation, a record 531 million rounds were played in 2023, surpassing the high of 529 million set in 2021. Supreme Golf, a public golf booking website, reports in its latest analysis that the average cost of a tee time has increased to $49 in 2024 from $38 in 2019, a 30% increase. Those cost increases are also on par (pun intended) with the costs of private clubs and initiation fees during that same period, where membership rosters that were dwindling pre-COVID now have waitlists 50 to 60 people deep, according to Jason Becker, co-founder and chief executive officer of Golf Life Navigators, which matches homebuyers with golf course communities. “There’s been an absolute run on private golf. If we use southwest Florida as an example, where there are 158 golf communities, this time last November, only five had memberships available,” he said. That inability to find a club close to home has pushed avid golfers to look farther afield, choosing national memberships at clubs that require traveling, usually via plane, to play. Dormie has capitalized on this growing segment, offering two types of memberships: First, a national membership, where members pay an initiation fee and monthly dues just as they would at a local club, but instead of one club they have access to seven. The second option is a signature membership for companies, “which allows businesses to use our properties for entertainment needs and requires a multiyear commitment,” Peed says. The network also offers a limited number of regional memberships for those living within a certain distance of one of its clubs. Dormie Network declined to provide the cost of memberships or monthly dues and wouldn’t give membership numbers, but the clubs are structured to lodge roughly 60 golfers, max, on-site at any given property at any time. The total number of beds across the network’s portfolio of properties has increased from 84 in 2019 to 432 today. It saw a jump from 10,000 room nights in 2019 to 48,000 in 2023. This September, Dormie opened GrayBull in Maxwell, in Nebraska’s, Sandhills region. Dormie Network tabbed David McLay Kidd to build the course, who also built the original course at Oregon’s famed Bandon Dunes. Kidd says of the property GrayBull sits on, “It’s like the Goldilocks thing: not too flat, not too steep. It’s kind of in a bowl that looks inwards, and there are no bad views.” That kind of remote destination, where the long-range views are only Mother Nature or other golf holes, is what drives many traveling golfers these days. Peed says his team leaned on years of knowledge from Dormie’s acquisitions as they built GrayBull, which started construction in 2022. “We had an understanding of how our members and guests use the clubs that allowed us to take a blank canvas in the Sandhills of Nebraska and combine all of the greatest aspects of each Dormie property into one.” ©2024 Bloomberg L.P. Visit bloomberg.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.Join this golf club and you’ll get 7 ‘home’ courses across the US
CLEVELAND (AP) — Germain Ifedi became the fourth left tackle to start this season for the Cleveland Browns, lining up Thursday night against the AFC North-leading Pittsburgh Steelers. Ifedi moved up the depth chart and into the lineup after starter Dawand Jones broke his left leg last week at New Orleans and had surgery. He'll be responsible for blocking quarterback Jameis Winston's blindside.
You probably haven’t gotten wind of the news yet, but the Bears fired coach Matt Eberflus last week. No, really, they did . Happy to hear it? We figured some of you would be. In this week’s “Polling Place,” your home for Sun-Times sports polls on the social platform X, we wanted to know if Bears fans’ enthusiasm about the team has changed with Eberflus out. Suffice it to say, almost no one who voted was disappointed. “Call me crazy,” commented @JeffreyCanalia, who was about to write something really crazy, “but I still think they can make the playoffs.” Next, we asked about Sunday’s Bears-49ers game . And the winner is? “I have thought they were going to win too many times this year to think this now,” @P6Cassidy offered. Last, we asked which Bears coach was worst among Marc Trestman, John Fox, Matt Nagy and Eberflus. “Yes,” answered @IllinoisGolfer, hilariously. And from @Marie_Manning: “None of them stayed long enough to find out.” One supposes we should count our blessings. On to the polls: Poll No. 1: Has your enthusiasm about the Bears changed since the firing of coach Matt Eberflus? Upshot: Will things be better on the field? Will better decisions be made on the sideline? We’ll see. It certainly could be argued that not having to hear Eberflus’ interpretations of events will be a victory in itself. Poll No. 2: How will the Bears fare Sunday at the 49ers in their first game post-Eberflus? Upshot: “Once again,” @RiisPark99, “the media and the fans are listening to their hearts and not their heads. Bears lose.” Wait a minute, where does this commenter get off implying the media have hearts? Poll No. 3: Of the Bears’ four head coaches since Lovie Smith, who was the worst? Upshot: What in the holy hell did we ever do to the football gods to deserve that lineup? Asking for a few million friends.The ( ) share price has been a bit of an underperformer again in 2024. Since the start of the year, the giant's shares have fallen 2.5%. And unless there's a late year surge, it seems very likely that the company's shares are going to fall well short of the performance of the ASX 200 index, which is up almost 11% year to date. But that's 2024, what about next year? Let's see what could happen. CSL share price outlook in 2025 As long as Donald Trump doesn't make any material changes that negatively impact drugmakers in the United States, then it is looking like 2025 could be a good year for CSL's shares. That's because all the major brokers agree that its shares are undervalued and in the buy zone right now. This is being driven by the market's expectation that the company's key plasma therapies business is going to underpin double-digit earnings growth each year for the next few years. So, with the CSL share price trading on lower than normal multiples, they believe there's plenty of upside ahead for investors. For example, speaking about the investment opportunity here, Bell Potter recently said: CSL presents an attractive buying opportunity as we anticipate the start of a margin recovery phase for CSL, driving above-market earnings growth over the next few years. CSL trades at a 12-month forward PE of ~28x, representing a discount to its 10-year average of ~31x. Furthermore, the company will continue to deleverage the balance sheet over the next few years. Given the company's proven quality and growth prospects, we believe significant upside remains. Bell Potter has a buy rating and $345.00 price target on the company's shares. This implies potential upside of 23% for investors from current levels. What else? Elsewhere, Morgans currently has an add rating and $330.75 price target, which offers 18% upside for investors. It was pleased with its performance in FY 2024. It said: FY24 results were broadly in line, with double-digit underlying top and bottom line growth and strong OCF. Strong plasma collections drove Behring sales (+15%), while Seqirus was soft (+4%) on reduced immunisation rates, albeit above market, and Vifor grew modestly given follow-on products in some EU markets. We retain our Add rating. Over at Citi, its analysts have a buy rating and $345.00 price target and then UBS has a buy rating and $340.00 price target. Overall, while 2024 may have been disappointing for this market darling, the signs are positive for 2025.'Amarillo' Steve, the Dems hate to see you go
Gov't says significant progress made on constitutional reform billPHILADELPHIA (AP) — The Philadelphia Phillies and right-handed pitcher Joe Ross finalized a $4 million, one-year contract on Monday. Ross can earn an additional $1 million in bonuses for days on the active roster: $333,333 each for 60 and 120, and $333,334 for 170. The 31-year-old Ross made 10 starts and 25 total appearances for the Milwaukee Brewers last season. He went 3-6 with a 3.77 ERA. Selected by the San Diego Padres in the first round of the 2011 amateur draft, the 6-foot-4 Ross has pitched in 123 career games across seven seasons with the Washington Nationals and Brewers. In his career, he has combined for a 4.19 ERA with 469 strikeouts to 170 walks. He's 29-34 with a 4.19 career ERA. Story continues below video Ross is the latest in an offseason of minor moves for the NL East champs. The Phillies acquired left-hander Jesús Luzardo from the Miami Marlins and signed free-agent outfielder Max Kepler to a $10 million, one-year deal. AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/MLB
