Mill Creek Capital Advisors LLC Decreases Stock Holdings in Danaher Co. (NYSE:DHR)

Mill Creek Capital Advisors LLC lessened its stake in Danaher Co. (NYSE:DHR) by 17.7% in the 3rd quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The fund owned 2,335 shares of the conglomerate’s stock after selling 503 shares during the quarter. Mill Creek Capital Advisors LLC’s holdings in Danaher were worth $649,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Other large investors also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Fort Pitt Capital Group LLC boosted its holdings in Danaher by 3.2% in the 3rd quarter. Fort Pitt Capital Group LLC now owns 238,092 shares of the conglomerate’s stock worth $66,194,000 after buying an additional 7,421 shares during the last quarter. Good Life Advisors LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Danaher during the third quarter worth approximately $217,000. Oak Thistle LLC acquired a new position in Danaher in the 2nd quarter valued at $363,000. Harvest Portfolios Group Inc. lifted its holdings in Danaher by 1.2% in the 3rd quarter. Harvest Portfolios Group Inc. now owns 202,263 shares of the conglomerate’s stock valued at $56,233,000 after purchasing an additional 2,465 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Diversified Trust Co boosted its stake in Danaher by 75.4% during the 2nd quarter. Diversified Trust Co now owns 4,360 shares of the conglomerate’s stock worth $1,090,000 after purchasing an additional 1,874 shares during the last quarter. 79.05% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Danaher Stock Performance

NYSE:DHR opened at $230.50 on Friday. Danaher Co. has a fifty-two week low of $206.30 and a fifty-two week high of $281.70. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.32, a quick ratio of 1.01 and a current ratio of 1.37. The company has a 50 day moving average price of $262.20 and a 200 day moving average price of $260.47. The stock has a market capitalization of $166.49 billion, a P/E ratio of 43.99, a PEG ratio of 4.44 and a beta of 0.85.

Danaher (NYSE:DHR) last released its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, October 22nd. The conglomerate reported $1.71 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $1.57 by $0.14. The business had revenue of $5.80 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $5.59 billion. Danaher had a return on equity of 10.62% and a net margin of 16.39%. The company’s quarterly revenue was up 3.1% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period last year, the business posted $2.02 earnings per share. Equities research analysts forecast that Danaher Co. will post 7.51 EPS for the current year.

Danaher Dividend Announcement

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, October 25th. Investors of record on Friday, September 27th were issued a $0.27 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Friday, September 27th. This represents a $1.08 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.47%. Danaher’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 20.61%.

Insider Activity

In other news, SVP Georgeann Couchara sold 952 shares of Danaher stock in a transaction on Monday, August 26th. The shares were sold at an average price of $268.37, for a total value of $255,488.24. Following the transaction, the senior vice president now directly owns 4,212 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $1,130,374.44. The trade was a 18.44 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available through this link. Company insiders own 11.10% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of brokerages have recently commented on DHR. Stifel Nicolaus increased their target price on shares of Danaher from $250.00 to $265.00 and gave the company a “hold” rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 23rd. The Goldman Sachs Group increased their price objective on shares of Danaher from $225.00 to $250.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a report on Wednesday, July 24th. Robert W. Baird lowered their target price on Danaher from $278.00 to $277.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a report on Wednesday, October 23rd. KeyCorp increased their price target on Danaher from $290.00 to $310.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Wednesday, October 23rd. Finally, Raymond James lowered their price objective on Danaher from $310.00 to $300.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a research note on Wednesday, October 23rd. Five equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and fifteen have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, the stock has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $287.16.

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.