Gladstone Institutional Advisory LLC Sells 734 Shares of Danaher Co. (NYSE:DHR)

Gladstone Institutional Advisory LLC lowered its stake in Danaher Co. (NYSE:DHR) by 18.5% in the 4th quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 3,239 shares of the conglomerate’s stock after selling 734 shares during the quarter. Gladstone Institutional Advisory LLC’s holdings in Danaher were worth $749,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Other hedge funds also recently modified their holdings of the company. Wellington Management Group LLP grew its position in Danaher by 18.6% in the 3rd quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP now owns 24,930,281 shares of the conglomerate’s stock valued at $6,185,203,000 after purchasing an additional 3,905,449 shares during the period. Northern Trust Corp boosted its holdings in Danaher by 1.7% during the 3rd quarter. Northern Trust Corp now owns 8,100,722 shares of the conglomerate’s stock worth $2,009,789,000 after acquiring an additional 134,905 shares during the last quarter. Norges Bank purchased a new position in Danaher during the 4th quarter worth $1,752,382,000. Flossbach Von Storch AG raised its stake in shares of Danaher by 1.8% during the 4th quarter. Flossbach Von Storch AG now owns 4,601,351 shares of the conglomerate’s stock worth $1,064,477,000 after purchasing an additional 82,672 shares during the period. Finally, Fisher Asset Management LLC raised its stake in shares of Danaher by 6.2% during the 4th quarter. Fisher Asset Management LLC now owns 4,227,108 shares of the conglomerate’s stock worth $977,900,000 after purchasing an additional 248,140 shares during the period. Institutional investors own 79.05% of the company’s stock.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Danaher news, SVP Daniel Raskas sold 23,757 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, February 26th. The stock was 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 owns 38,102 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $9,601,704. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this link. In other news, SVP Daniel Raskas sold 23,757 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, February 26th. The stock was sold at an average price of $252.00, for a total transaction of $5,986,764.00. Following the completion of the sale, the senior vice president now owns 38,102 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $9,601,704. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is accessible through the SEC website. Also, CEO Rainer Blair sold 47,175 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, April 24th. The shares were sold at an average price of $249.22, for a total value of $11,756,953.50. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 115,995 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $28,908,273.90. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 172,540 shares of company stock valued at $43,523,481 over the last quarter. 10.90% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of equities research analysts have recently commented on the company. Royal Bank of Canada lifted their target price on Danaher from $254.00 to $282.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research note on Wednesday, January 31st. HSBC upgraded Danaher from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and boosted their price objective for the company from $250.00 to $280.00 in a research note on Wednesday, April 17th. TD Cowen boosted their price objective on Danaher from $280.00 to $290.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Wednesday, April 24th. KeyCorp boosted their price objective on Danaher from $260.00 to $290.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Thursday, February 1st. Finally, StockNews.com cut Danaher from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Wednesday, January 31st. Six analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and nine have given a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Danaher currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $267.31.

Danaher Stock Down 0.2 %

Shares of NYSE DHR opened at $266.55 on Wednesday. Danaher Co. has a 12 month low of $182.09 and a 12 month high of $267.64. 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 firm has a market capitalization of $197.43 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 45.18, a PEG ratio of 4.11 and a beta of 0.83. The business has a 50-day moving average of $249.30 and a 200-day moving average of $237.84.

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

Danaher Announces Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, July 26th. Stockholders of record on Friday, June 28th will be issued a dividend of $0.27 per share. This represents a $1.08 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.41%. The ex-dividend date is Friday, June 28th. Danaher’s payout ratio is 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.