Rainer Blair Sells 47,175 Shares of Danaher Co. (NYSE:DHR) Stock

Danaher Co. (NYSE:DHR) CEO Rainer Blair sold 47,175 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, April 24th. The shares were sold at an average price of $249.22, for a total transaction 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 $28,908,273.90. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this hyperlink.

Danaher Trading Down 1.8 %

Shares of NYSE:DHR traded down $4.59 during midday trading on Thursday, reaching $245.82. 2,943,521 shares of the company’s stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 2,786,286. The firm’s 50 day simple moving average is $249.00 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $230.78. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.31, a current ratio of 1.68 and a quick ratio of 1.37. The stock has a market cap of $182.04 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 42.44, a P/E/G ratio of 4.24 and a beta of 0.83. Danaher Co. has a fifty-two week low of $182.09 and a fifty-two week high of $259.00.

Danaher (NYSE:DHR) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, April 23rd. The conglomerate reported $1.92 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.72 by $0.20. The firm had revenue of $5.80 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $5.62 billion. Danaher had a return on equity of 11.48% and a net margin of 16.78%. The company’s quarterly revenue was down 2.6% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period last year, the company earned $2.36 EPS. As a group, sell-side analysts forecast that Danaher Co. will post 7.62 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Danaher Increases Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, April 26th. Investors of record on Thursday, March 28th will be given a dividend of $0.27 per share. This represents a $1.08 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.44%. This is an increase from Danaher’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.24. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Wednesday, March 27th. Danaher’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 18.31%.

Institutional Trading of Danaher

A number of hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of DHR. ST Germain D J Co. Inc. increased its holdings in shares of Danaher by 1.4% in the first quarter. ST Germain D J Co. Inc. now owns 2,880 shares of the conglomerate’s stock valued at $719,000 after purchasing an additional 41 shares during the period. Godsey & Gibb Inc. increased its holdings in shares of Danaher by 3.0% in the first quarter. Godsey & Gibb Inc. now owns 1,442 shares of the conglomerate’s stock valued at $360,000 after purchasing an additional 42 shares during the period. Nicholas Hoffman & Company LLC. increased its holdings in shares of Danaher by 2.3% in the fourth quarter. Nicholas Hoffman & Company LLC. now owns 1,899 shares of the conglomerate’s stock valued at $439,000 after purchasing an additional 43 shares during the period. Los Angeles Capital Management LLC grew its holdings in Danaher by 1.3% during the fourth quarter. Los Angeles Capital Management LLC now owns 3,470 shares of the conglomerate’s stock worth $803,000 after acquiring an additional 43 shares during the period. Finally, Berger Financial Group Inc grew its holdings in Danaher by 1.7% during the fourth quarter. Berger Financial Group Inc now owns 2,517 shares of the conglomerate’s stock worth $582,000 after acquiring an additional 43 shares during the period. 79.05% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

DHR has been the subject of several research analyst reports. Barclays increased their price objective on shares of Danaher from $260.00 to $270.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Wednesday. KeyCorp increased their price target on shares of Danaher from $260.00 to $290.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Thursday, February 1st. TD Cowen increased their price target on shares of Danaher from $280.00 to $290.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Wednesday. Royal Bank of Canada increased their price target on shares of Danaher from $254.00 to $282.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Wednesday, January 31st. Finally, Citigroup raised their price objective on shares of Danaher from $280.00 to $290.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Wednesday. Six analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and twelve have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $270.00.

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.