Mesirow Buys $616,000 Sempra Stake as Institutions Hold 89.65%

Mesirow Financial Investment Management Inc. bought 7,901 shares of Sempra Energy (NYSE:SRE) in the third quarter, a position worth approximately $616,000 at the time of filing, according to its most recent disclosure to the Securities and Exchange Commission. The purchase is small. It is also one of six institutional moves into the stock disclosed for the same quarter, and together they point to where professional money placed its bets before Sempra's November earnings report.

Who else bought in the third quarter?

The filings show a cluster of fresh positions and one enlargement:

• Woodley Farra Manion Portfolio Management Inc. opened a new stake worth roughly $557,000.
• Lido Advisors LLC raised its holding by 9.5%, adding 2,263 shares to reach 26,210 shares valued at $2,044,000.
• Keybank National Association OH initiated a position of approximately $2,344,000.
• Searle & CO. purchased a new position valued at $468,000.
• New York Life Investment Management LLC bought in at $7,609,000, the largest of the new stakes.

Institutional investors own 89.65% of Sempra's stock. That figure matters more than any single filing: with ownership this concentrated, small 13F entries such as Mesirow's shift little actual stock. What they do signal is direction, not weight.

What did the third-quarter numbers show?

Sempra last reported quarterly earnings on Thursday, November 5. The utility posted earnings per share of $1.40, beating the analyst consensus of $1.22 by $0.18 and comparing against $1.11 in the same quarter a year earlier. Revenue rose 1.3% year over year to $3.19 billion — but that figure fell short of the $3.31 billion consensus. The EPS beat, in other words, arrived alongside a revenue miss, and neither the filing summaries nor the company's disclosure explain the gap. Return on equity stood at 8.84%, with a net margin of 22.53%.

Guidance offers the forward view. Sempra set FY2026 guidance at $4.800 to $5.300 EPS and FY2027 guidance at $5.100 to $5.700 EPS. Analysts, as a group, expect $5.15 per share for the current fiscal year. Guidance ranges that wide invite caution; the low ends of both years sit well beneath the consensus the analysts themselves publish.

How does the balance sheet and dividend look?

The shares opened at $78.97 on Friday, up 1.0%, against a 12-month range of $76.21 to $101.04. The stock trades below both its 50-day moving average of $81.65 and its 200-day moving average of $89.08 — a decline the new institutional buyers have so far absorbed at a loss on paper.

The balance sheet metrics are moderate for a regulated utility: a current ratio of 1.61, a quick ratio of 1.59, and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.77. Market capitalization stands at $51.66 billion, with a price-to-earnings ratio of 16.91, a PEG ratio of 2.15, and a beta of 0.55.

Sempra declared a quarterly dividend of $0.6575 per share, payable Friday, January 15 to stockholders of record on Thursday, December 10 — also the ex-dividend date. Annualized at $2.63, the dividend yields 3.3% at current prices. The payout ratio is 56.32%, which leaves room, though a yield this size depends on the earnings base holding firm.

What are analysts saying?

The brokerages moved in different directions:

• HSBC initiated coverage on Thursday, October 22, with a "buy" rating and a $97.50 price objective.
• Morgan Stanley cut its target from $104.00 to $100.00 on Friday, September 18, keeping an "overweight" rating.
• Ladenburg Thalmann lowered its target from $98.00 to $89.50 on Tuesday, September 22, maintaining "buy."
• Goldman Sachs raised its target from $109.00 to $110.00 on Monday, August 10, with a "buy" rating.
• Barclays trimmed its target from $103.00 to $90.00 on Monday, October 12, reiterating "overweight."

Fourteen analysts rate the stock a Buy and five a Hold, producing a MarketBeat consensus of "Moderate Buy" with a consensus target of $99.47. Note what the targets do not say: four of the five cited actions cut the price objective, and the consensus target sits more than 25% above where the shares currently trade.

What is Sempra, in brief?

Sempra is a North American energy infrastructure company headquartered in San Diego, California, formed in 1998 through the merger of Pacific Enterprises and Enova Corporation. It operates regulated utilities — San Diego Gas & Electric and Southern California Gas Company in California — and holds an ownership interest in Oncor, an electric transmission and distribution business in Texas.

New institutional money arrived in the third quarter; the stock's trajectory since then has not rewarded it.