The Manufacturers Life Insurance Company Invests $467,000 in Azenta, Inc. $AZTA

The Manufacturers Life Insurance Company bought a new stake in Azenta, Inc. (NASDAQ:AZTA) during the 2nd quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor bought 18,280 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $467,000.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently added to or reduced their stakes in AZTA. BlackRock Inc. acquired a new stake in Azenta during the 2nd quarter valued at approximately $192,152,000. Conestoga Capital Advisors LLC increased its stake in shares of Azenta by 116.1% in the first quarter. Conestoga Capital Advisors LLC now owns 2,844,546 shares of the company’s stock worth $60,105,000 after acquiring an additional 1,528,145 shares during the period. Front Street Capital Management Inc. purchased a new position in shares of Azenta during the second quarter worth $33,212,000. Millennium Management LLC lifted its position in Azenta by 41.6% during the third quarter. Millennium Management LLC now owns 1,698,562 shares of the company’s stock valued at $48,783,000 after purchasing an additional 499,216 shares during the period. Finally, Scopia Capital Management LP acquired a new position in Azenta during the third quarter valued at $14,026,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 99.08% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several equities research analysts have commented on the stock. Weiss Ratings raised shares of Azenta from a “sell (e+)” rating to a “sell (d-)” rating in a report on Wednesday, August 26th. Needham & Company LLC boosted their price objective on Azenta from $33.00 to $37.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Wednesday, August 5th. Four analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, two have assigned a Hold rating and one has assigned a Sell rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Azenta currently has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $41.20.

Azenta Price Performance

AZTA opened at $31.33 on Monday. The firm has a fifty day moving average price of $29.73 and a 200 day moving average price of $25.25. Azenta, Inc. has a 1 year low of $15.93 and a 1 year high of $41.73. The stock has a market cap of $1.37 billion, a P/E ratio of -11.35 and a beta of 1.39.

Azenta (NASDAQ:AZTA) last released its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, August 4th. The company reported $0.16 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.11 by $0.05. The company had revenue of $161.18 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $149.31 million. Azenta had a negative net margin of 20.63% and a positive return on equity of 1.18%.

Azenta Profile

Azenta, Inc (NASDAQ: AZTA) is a life sciences technology company specializing in sample management, cryogenic storage and genomic services for research and clinical applications. Formerly the Life Sciences division of Brooks Automation, Azenta provides integrated solutions that enable customers to store, track and analyze biological samples with high levels of automation, data integrity and efficiency. Its offerings span automated storage systems, biorepository management software and end‐to‐end sample tracking workflows.

In addition to hardware and informatics platforms for sample storage, Azenta’s Genomics business delivers next‐generation sequencing (NGS), DNA synthesis, and molecular biology services.