Primecap Management Co. CA Reduces Stock Position in Danaher Co. (NYSE:DHR)

Primecap Management Co. CA cut its stake in Danaher Co. (NYSE:DHR) by 52.3% in the 3rd quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the SEC. The institutional investor owned 31,937 shares of the conglomerate’s stock after selling 35,000 shares during the quarter. Primecap Management Co. CA’s holdings in Danaher were worth $8,879,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently made changes to their positions in DHR. CreativeOne Wealth LLC purchased a new position in shares of Danaher during the 1st quarter valued at $250,000. Advisors Asset Management Inc. boosted its stake in Danaher by 3.2% during the first quarter. Advisors Asset Management Inc. now owns 9,277 shares of the conglomerate’s stock valued at $2,317,000 after buying an additional 290 shares during the period. Kestra Advisory Services LLC grew its position in Danaher by 10.4% during the first quarter. Kestra Advisory Services LLC now owns 80,474 shares of the conglomerate’s stock worth $20,097,000 after buying an additional 7,609 shares in the last quarter. Bamco Inc. NY increased its stake in Danaher by 37.2% in the 1st quarter. Bamco Inc. NY now owns 50,090 shares of the conglomerate’s stock worth $12,508,000 after acquiring an additional 13,575 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Bellevue Group AG raised its holdings in shares of Danaher by 2.3% in the 1st quarter. Bellevue Group AG now owns 86,232 shares of the conglomerate’s stock valued at $21,534,000 after acquiring an additional 1,922 shares in the last quarter. 79.05% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several research analysts have recently commented on DHR shares. Evercore ISI boosted their price objective on Danaher from $275.00 to $278.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Tuesday, October 1st. UBS Group decreased their price target on shares of Danaher from $309.00 to $305.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a report on Wednesday, October 23rd. Stifel Nicolaus raised their price objective on shares of Danaher from $250.00 to $265.00 and gave the company a “hold” rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 23rd. Royal Bank of Canada cut their target price on shares of Danaher from $333.00 to $311.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research report on Wednesday, October 23rd. Finally, StockNews.com downgraded Danaher from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Monday, November 18th. Six research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and fourteen have given 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 $287.16.

Danaher Trading Up 0.3 %

Shares of DHR opened at $235.83 on Friday. The stock has a market capitalization of $170.33 billion, a P/E ratio of 45.01, a PEG ratio of 4.25 and a beta of 0.85. Danaher Co. has a twelve month low of $215.68 and a twelve month high of $281.70. The company has a quick ratio of 1.01, a current ratio of 1.37 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.32. The firm has a fifty day simple moving average of $258.15 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $259.88.

Danaher (NYSE:DHR) last posted its earnings results on Tuesday, October 22nd. The conglomerate reported $1.71 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $1.57 by $0.14. The company had revenue of $5.80 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $5.59 billion. Danaher had a return on equity of 10.62% and a net margin of 16.39%. Danaher’s quarterly revenue was up 3.1% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period last year, the firm earned $2.02 earnings per share. On average, research analysts anticipate that Danaher Co. will post 7.5 EPS for the current year.

Danaher Announces Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, October 25th. Investors of record on Friday, September 27th were issued a dividend of $0.27 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Friday, September 27th. This represents a $1.08 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.46%. Danaher’s dividend payout ratio is presently 20.61%.

Insider Buying and Selling

In related news, SVP Georgeann Couchara sold 952 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Monday, August 26th. The shares were sold at an average price of $268.37, for a total value of $255,488.24. Following the completion of the transaction, the senior vice president now directly owns 4,212 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $1,130,374.44. This represents a 18.44 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link. 11.10% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Danaher Company Profile

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.