AJOVista LLC Invests $187,000 in Danaher Co. (NYSE:DHR)

AJOVista LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Danaher Co. (NYSE:DHR) in the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor purchased 807 shares of the conglomerate’s stock, valued at approximately $187,000.

Several other institutional investors also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the stock. BKM Wealth Management LLC bought a new position in shares of Danaher during the 4th quarter valued at approximately $27,000. Wetzel Investment Advisors Inc. purchased a new stake in Danaher in the fourth quarter worth $29,000. OFI Invest Asset Management bought a new stake in shares of Danaher in the third quarter valued at $30,000. Rakuten Securities Inc. purchased a new position in shares of Danaher during the 4th quarter valued at $36,000. Finally, BluePath Capital Management LLC purchased a new position in shares of Danaher during the 3rd quarter valued at $44,000. Institutional investors own 79.05% of the company’s stock.

Insider Buying and Selling at Danaher

In other news, Director Walter G. Lohr sold 3,289 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Thursday, February 15th. The stock was sold at an average price of $251.15, for a total transaction of $826,032.35. Following the transaction, the director now directly owns 14,129 shares in the company, valued at approximately $3,548,498.35. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. In other news, SVP Daniel Raskas sold 23,757 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, February 26th. The shares were sold at an average price of $252.00, for a total value of $5,986,764.00. Following the completion of the sale, the senior vice president now directly owns 38,102 shares in the company, valued at approximately $9,601,704. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, Director Walter G. Lohr sold 3,289 shares of the stock in a transaction on Thursday, February 15th. The shares were sold at an average price of $251.15, for a total transaction of $826,032.35. Following the transaction, the director now directly owns 14,129 shares in the company, valued at approximately $3,548,498.35. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 107,273 shares of company stock worth $26,813,819 over the last 90 days. Corporate insiders own 11.10% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of brokerages recently issued reports on DHR. Raymond James boosted their price objective on Danaher from $240.00 to $270.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Wednesday, January 31st. StockNews.com lowered shares of Danaher from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Wednesday, January 31st. TD Cowen raised their price objective on shares of Danaher from $280.00 to $290.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Wednesday, April 24th. Bank of America boosted their target price on shares of Danaher from $258.00 to $270.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a report on Wednesday, April 24th. Finally, KeyCorp raised their price target on Danaher from $260.00 to $290.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Thursday, February 1st. Six analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and nine have assigned a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $267.31.

Danaher Price Performance

Shares of DHR traded up $1.54 during trading hours on Friday, reaching $248.38. 1,787,817 shares of the company’s stock traded hands, compared to its average volume of 2,914,990. Danaher Co. has a 12 month low of $182.09 and a 12 month high of $259.00. The company has a current ratio of 1.85, a quick ratio of 1.51 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.31. The stock has a market cap of $183.97 billion, a PE ratio of 42.10, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.82 and a beta of 0.83. The firm’s 50 day simple moving average is $248.48 and its 200-day simple moving average is $232.27.

Danaher (NYSE:DHR) last announced its earnings results on Tuesday, April 23rd. The conglomerate reported $1.92 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.72 by $0.20. The business had revenue of $5.80 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $5.62 billion. Danaher had a net margin of 16.78% and a return on equity of 11.43%. Danaher’s revenue for the quarter was down 2.6% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the business posted $2.36 earnings per share. Equities analysts expect that Danaher Co. will post 7.63 EPS for the current year.

Danaher Increases Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, April 26th. Investors of record on Thursday, March 28th were paid a $0.27 dividend. This represents a $1.08 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.43%. The ex-dividend date was Wednesday, March 27th. This is a boost from Danaher’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.24. Danaher’s dividend payout ratio is currently 18.31%.

About Danaher

Danaher Corporation designs, manufactures, and markets professional, medical, industrial, and commercial products and services worldwide. The Biotechnology segments offers bioprocess technologies, consumables, and services that advance, accelerate, and integrate the development and manufacture of therapeutics; cell line and cell culture media development services; cell culture media, process liquids and buffers for manufacturing, chromatography resins, filtration technologies, aseptic fill finish; single-use hardware and consumables and services, such as the design and installation of full manufacturing suites; lab filtration, separation, and purification; lab-scale protein purification and analytical tools; reagents, membranes, and services; and healthcare filtration solutions.