Danaher (NYSE:DHR) Price Target Increased to $271.00 by Analysts at Robert W. Baird

Danaher (NYSE:DHR) had its target price upped by Robert W. Baird from $259.00 to $271.00 in a research note issued to investors on Wednesday morning, Benzinga reports. The brokerage currently has an outperform rating on the conglomerate’s stock.

A number of other equities research analysts have also issued reports on DHR. Barclays lifted their target price on Danaher from $240.00 to $260.00 and gave the company an equal weight rating in a research report on Wednesday, April 10th. StockNews.com downgraded Danaher from a buy rating to a hold rating in a research note on Wednesday, January 31st. KeyCorp raised their price target on Danaher from $260.00 to $290.00 and gave the company an overweight rating in a research note on Thursday, February 1st. Royal Bank of Canada raised their price target on Danaher from $254.00 to $282.00 and gave the company an outperform rating in a research note on Wednesday, January 31st. Finally, HSBC upgraded Danaher from a hold rating to a buy rating and raised their price target for the company from $250.00 to $280.00 in a research note on Wednesday, April 17th. Six investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and eleven have given a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock has an average rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus target price of $269.64.

Danaher Trading Up 0.3 %

NYSE DHR opened at $246.58 on Wednesday. The firm has a market cap of $182.64 billion, a P/E ratio of 41.79, a P/E/G ratio of 3.79 and a beta of 0.83. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.31, a current ratio of 1.85 and a quick ratio of 1.37. The stock’s 50-day moving average is $248.87 and its 200-day moving average is $231.16. Danaher has a one year low of $182.09 and a one year high of $259.00.

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

Danaher Increases Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, April 26th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, March 28th were issued a $0.27 dividend. This represents a $1.08 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.44%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Wednesday, March 27th. This is a boost from Danaher’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.24. Danaher’s dividend payout ratio is presently 18.31%.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Danaher news, SVP Georgeann Couchara sold 2,622 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, February 13th. The stock was sold at an average price of $242.67, for a total value of $636,280.74. Following the completion of the transaction, the senior vice president now owns 4,244 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $1,029,891.48. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available through the SEC website. In other news, SVP Georgeann Couchara sold 2,622 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, February 13th. The stock was sold at an average price of $242.67, for a total value of $636,280.74. Following the completion of the sale, the senior vice president now owns 4,244 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $1,029,891.48. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available at this link. Also, EVP Joakim Weidemanis sold 22,433 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, April 25th. The stock was sold at an average price of $250.46, for a total value of $5,618,569.18. Following the sale, the executive vice president now directly owns 90,412 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $22,644,589.52. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 106,565 shares of company stock valued at $26,641,364 in the last 90 days. Corporate insiders own 11.10% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several institutional investors and hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in DHR. Norges Bank bought a new position in shares of Danaher in the fourth quarter valued at approximately $1,752,382,000. Wellington Management Group LLP lifted its holdings in Danaher by 18.6% during the third quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP now owns 24,930,281 shares of the conglomerate’s stock worth $6,185,203,000 after acquiring an additional 3,905,449 shares during the period. DZ BANK AG Deutsche Zentral Genossenschafts Bank Frankfurt am Main lifted its holdings in Danaher by 214.4% during the fourth quarter. DZ BANK AG Deutsche Zentral Genossenschafts Bank Frankfurt am Main now owns 3,073,661 shares of the conglomerate’s stock worth $711,051,000 after acquiring an additional 2,096,038 shares during the period. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD lifted its holdings in Danaher by 10.7% during the fourth quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD now owns 16,757,558 shares of the conglomerate’s stock worth $3,876,694,000 after acquiring an additional 1,619,586 shares during the period. Finally, Capital International Investors lifted its holdings in Danaher by 9.1% during the fourth quarter. Capital International Investors now owns 15,956,519 shares of the conglomerate’s stock worth $3,691,735,000 after acquiring an additional 1,334,781 shares during the period. Institutional investors own 79.05% of the company’s stock.

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.