Legal & General Group Plc Acquires New Position in Fortive Corporation $FTV

Legal & General Group Plc acquired a new stake in Fortive Corporation (NYSE:FTV) during the second quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund acquired 1,888,051 shares of the technology company’s stock, valued at approximately $115,341,000. Legal & General Group Plc owned approximately 0.63% of Fortive at the end of the most recent quarter.

Several other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently added to or reduced their stakes in FTV. Dodge & Cox grew its holdings in Fortive by 3.7% during the fourth quarter. Dodge & Cox now owns 44,157,822 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $2,437,953,000 after acquiring an additional 1,562,028 shares during the period. BlackRock Inc. acquired a new stake in Fortive in the second quarter valued at $1,626,463,000. Viking Global Investors LP lifted its holdings in Fortive by 28.7% in the third quarter. Viking Global Investors LP now owns 20,483,680 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $1,003,495,000 after acquiring an additional 4,571,056 shares during the period. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD lifted its holdings in Fortive by 29.2% in the fourth quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD now owns 20,046,352 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $1,106,760,000 after acquiring an additional 4,532,031 shares during the period. Finally, Flossbach Von Storch SE purchased a new stake in shares of Fortive during the 2nd quarter worth $739,668,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 94.94% of the company’s stock.

Insider Activity at Fortive

In other news, SVP Peter C. Underwood sold 8,662 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, August 10th. The shares were sold at an average price of $61.59, for a total value of $533,492.58. Following the sale, the senior vice president directly owned 79,118 shares in the company, valued at $4,872,877.62. This represents a 9.87% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. 0.65% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Fortive Stock Down 0.5%

Fortive stock opened at $59.93 on Friday. Fortive Corporation has a fifty-two week low of $46.54 and a fifty-two week high of $64.56. The firm has a market capitalization of $18.10 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 35.46, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.50 and a beta of 1.06. The stock’s fifty day moving average is $61.09 and its two-hundred day moving average is $59.47. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.58, a quick ratio of 1.00 and a current ratio of 1.24.

Fortive (NYSE:FTV) last released its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, July 29th. The technology company reported $0.74 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.71 by $0.03. Fortive had a return on equity of 15.33% and a net margin of 12.38%.The business had revenue of $1.10 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.07 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company posted $0.90 EPS. The business’s revenue was up 8.0% on a year-over-year basis. Fortive has set its FY 2026 guidance at 2.950-3.050 EPS. Analysts predict that Fortive Corporation will post 3.02 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Fortive announced that its board has initiated a share repurchase plan on Monday, May 4th that authorizes the company to repurchase 20,000,000 outstanding shares. This repurchase authorization authorizes the technology company to reacquire shares of its stock through open market purchases. Shares repurchase plans are often an indication that the company’s board believes its shares are undervalued.

Fortive Increases Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, September 25th. Shareholders of record on Friday, September 4th will be issued a $0.07 dividend. This represents a $0.28 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.5%. This is a boost from Fortive’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.06. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, September 4th. Fortive’s payout ratio is currently 14.20%.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of equities analysts have recently weighed in on the stock. Wells Fargo & Company upped their price target on shares of Fortive from $58.00 to $65.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Monday, May 4th. Argus reiterated a “buy” rating and issued a $68.00 price objective on shares of Fortive in a research note on Wednesday, August 19th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. boosted their price objective on shares of Fortive from $63.00 to $64.00 and gave the stock an “underweight” rating in a report on Tuesday, May 12th. Citigroup upped their target price on shares of Fortive from $64.00 to $65.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Friday, May 1st. Finally, Royal Bank Of Canada increased their target price on shares of Fortive from $59.00 to $63.00 and gave the company a “sector perform” rating in a report on Friday, May 1st. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, eight have assigned a Hold rating and two have given a Sell rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the company has an average rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $63.10.

Fortive Profile

Fortive Corporation (NYSE: FTV) is a diversified industrial technology company headquartered in Everett, Washington. The company was created through a spin‑off from Danaher Corporation in 2016 and has since focused on building a portfolio of professional instrumentation and industrial technology businesses. In 2020 Fortive completed a further portfolio separation with the spin‑off of Vontier, concentrating Fortive’s activities on higher‑margin instrumentation, software and services.

Fortive’s operations center on professional test and measurement, sensing and monitoring, software‑enabled solutions, and lifecycle services that support industrial and commercial customers.