DekaBank Deutsche Girozentrale Reduces Position in Danaher Co. (NYSE:DHR)

DekaBank Deutsche Girozentrale reduced its position in shares of Danaher Co. (NYSE:DHR) by 1.6% in the 3rd quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund owned 678,074 shares of the conglomerate’s stock after selling 11,217 shares during the period. DekaBank Deutsche Girozentrale’s holdings in Danaher were worth $186,131,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently modified their holdings of the company. Vanguard Group Inc. increased its holdings in shares of Danaher by 7.4% in the 1st quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 60,107,030 shares of the conglomerate’s stock valued at $15,009,928,000 after acquiring an additional 4,163,657 shares during the last quarter. Legal & General Group Plc boosted its stake in Danaher by 2.4% in the second quarter. Legal & General Group Plc now owns 5,964,031 shares of the conglomerate’s stock valued at $1,490,112,000 after acquiring an additional 139,989 shares in the last quarter. Capital Research Global Investors increased its position in shares of Danaher by 1.0% during the first quarter. Capital Research Global Investors now owns 5,125,470 shares of the conglomerate’s stock worth $1,279,932,000 after purchasing an additional 52,679 shares in the last quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP increased its position in shares of Danaher by 2.6% during the second quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 3,398,649 shares of the conglomerate’s stock worth $849,195,000 after purchasing an additional 85,081 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Massachusetts Financial Services Co. MA lifted its holdings in shares of Danaher by 22.7% in the 2nd quarter. Massachusetts Financial Services Co. MA now owns 3,047,728 shares of the conglomerate’s stock valued at $761,475,000 after purchasing an additional 563,546 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 79.05% of the company’s stock.

Danaher Stock Performance

Shares of DHR stock opened at $245.39 on Friday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.33, a quick ratio of 1.04 and a current ratio of 1.43. The stock has a market cap of $181.76 billion, a PE ratio of 41.59, a P/E/G ratio of 4.49 and a beta of 0.83. Danaher Co. has a 1 year low of $182.09 and a 1 year high of $281.70. The stock has a fifty day moving average price of $269.52 and a 200 day moving average price of $260.42.

Danaher (NYSE:DHR) last released its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, October 22nd. The conglomerate reported $1.71 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $1.57 by $0.14. Danaher had a net margin of 16.94% and a return on equity of 11.06%. The business had revenue of $5.80 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $5.59 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the firm earned $2.02 EPS. The business’s revenue for the quarter was up 3.1% compared to the same quarter last year. Sell-side analysts forecast that Danaher Co. will post 7.59 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Danaher Announces Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, October 25th. Investors of record on Friday, September 27th were given a dividend of $0.27 per share. The ex-dividend date was Friday, September 27th. This represents a $1.08 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.44%. Danaher’s dividend payout ratio is currently 18.31%.

Insider Buying and Selling at Danaher

In related news, CEO Rainer Blair sold 9,007 shares of Danaher stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, July 31st. The stock was sold at an average price of $280.00, for a total transaction of $2,521,960.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 97,983 shares in the company, valued at approximately $27,435,240. This trade represents a 0.00 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. In related news, CEO Rainer Blair sold 9,007 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, July 31st. The shares were sold at an average price of $280.00, for a total transaction of $2,521,960.00. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 97,983 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $27,435,240. This represents a 0.00 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. Also, CFO Matthew Mcgrew sold 16,172 shares of Danaher stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, August 1st. The stock was sold at an average price of $279.84, for a total transaction of $4,525,572.48. Following the completion of the sale, the chief financial officer now directly owns 29,407 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $8,229,254.88. The trade was a 0.00 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last 90 days, insiders have sold 30,059 shares of company stock worth $8,400,897. 11.10% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several research firms have commented on DHR. Robert W. Baird cut their price target on Danaher from $278.00 to $277.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a research report on Wednesday. Evercore ISI raised their target price on shares of Danaher from $275.00 to $278.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research report on Tuesday, October 1st. Leerink Partners upped their price target on shares of Danaher from $275.00 to $280.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Wednesday, July 24th. Bank of America increased their price target on shares of Danaher from $270.00 to $275.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research note on Wednesday, July 24th. Finally, KeyCorp upped their target price on shares of Danaher from $290.00 to $310.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Wednesday. Seven equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and thirteen have issued a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, Danaher has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $287.28.

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.