General American Investors Co. Inc. Boosts Stake in Danaher Co. (NYSE:DHR)

General American Investors Co. Inc. increased its stake in shares of Danaher Co. (NYSE:DHR) by 20.0% during the third quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The fund owned 60,010 shares of the conglomerate’s stock after buying an additional 10,000 shares during the quarter. General American Investors Co. Inc.’s holdings in Danaher were worth $16,684,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Vanguard Group Inc. raised its stake in shares of Danaher by 7.4% in the first quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 60,107,030 shares of the conglomerate’s stock worth $15,009,928,000 after purchasing an additional 4,163,657 shares during the last quarter. Swedbank AB purchased a new position in Danaher during the 1st quarter worth approximately $676,545,000. TD Asset Management Inc lifted its stake in Danaher by 99.0% during the 2nd quarter. TD Asset Management Inc now owns 1,358,706 shares of the conglomerate’s stock valued at $339,473,000 after acquiring an additional 675,952 shares during the period. Massachusetts Financial Services Co. MA boosted 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 acquiring an additional 563,546 shares during the last quarter. Finally, International Assets Investment Management LLC increased its stake in shares of Danaher by 40,196.5% in the third quarter. International Assets Investment Management LLC now owns 429,964 shares of the conglomerate’s stock worth $119,539,000 after acquiring an additional 428,897 shares during the period. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 79.05% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

DHR has been the subject of a number of analyst reports. Royal Bank of Canada decreased their price target on Danaher from $333.00 to $311.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a report on Wednesday, October 23rd. Stifel Nicolaus lifted their price target on shares of Danaher from $250.00 to $265.00 and gave the company a “hold” rating in a research note on Wednesday, October 23rd. Evercore ISI boosted their target price on shares of Danaher from $275.00 to $278.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research note on Tuesday, October 1st. TD Cowen boosted their price objective on Danaher from $310.00 to $315.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Wednesday, October 23rd. Finally, Leerink Partners lifted their price target on Danaher from $275.00 to $280.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research note on Wednesday, July 24th. Five research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and fifteen have assigned a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $287.16.

Insider Buying and Selling at Danaher

In other news, SVP Georgeann Couchara sold 952 shares of the stock in a transaction on Monday, August 26th. The stock was sold at an average price of $268.37, for a total value of $255,488.24. Following the sale, the senior vice president now directly owns 4,212 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,130,374.44. This trade represents a 0.00 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through the SEC website. 10.90% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Danaher Trading Up 0.5 %

Shares of NYSE:DHR traded up $1.23 during midday trading on Thursday, reaching $248.99. 44,217 shares of the company’s stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 2,731,678. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.32, a current ratio of 1.37 and a quick ratio of 1.01. The stock has a market cap of $179.84 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 47.33, a P/E/G ratio of 4.54 and a beta of 0.85. The firm’s 50 day simple moving average is $265.79 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $260.75. Danaher Co. has a fifty-two week low of $192.35 and a fifty-two week high of $281.70.

Danaher (NYSE:DHR) last issued 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. The firm had revenue of $5.80 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $5.59 billion. Danaher had a net margin of 16.39% and a return on equity of 10.62%. The business’s revenue for the quarter was up 3.1% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the prior year, the business posted $2.02 EPS. As a group, sell-side analysts forecast that Danaher Co. will post 7.51 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Danaher Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, October 25th. Shareholders 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 yield of 0.43%. Danaher’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 20.61%.

Danaher 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.