West Branch Capital LLC Has $108,000 Position in Danaher Co. (NYSE:DHR)

West Branch Capital LLC cut its position in Danaher Co. (NYSE:DHR) by 58.3% during the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the SEC. The firm owned 472 shares of the conglomerate’s stock after selling 661 shares during the period. West Branch Capital LLC’s holdings in Danaher were worth $108,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently made changes to their positions in the company. FMR LLC lifted its stake in Danaher by 15.8% in the third quarter. FMR LLC now owns 23,617,424 shares of the conglomerate’s stock valued at $6,566,116,000 after buying an additional 3,217,631 shares in the last quarter. Massachusetts Financial Services Co. MA lifted its position in Danaher by 17.6% in the 3rd quarter. Massachusetts Financial Services Co. MA now owns 3,582,982 shares of the conglomerate’s stock valued at $996,141,000 after acquiring an additional 535,254 shares in the last quarter. International Assets Investment Management LLC boosted its stake in Danaher by 40,196.5% in the 3rd quarter. International Assets Investment Management LLC now owns 429,964 shares of the conglomerate’s stock worth $119,539,000 after purchasing an additional 428,897 shares during the period. Montrusco Bolton Investments Inc. raised its stake in shares of Danaher by 30.4% in the 3rd quarter. Montrusco Bolton Investments Inc. now owns 1,705,884 shares of the conglomerate’s stock valued at $465,617,000 after purchasing an additional 397,671 shares during the period. Finally, Caisse DE Depot ET Placement DU Quebec lifted its holdings in shares of Danaher by 82.4% in the third quarter. Caisse DE Depot ET Placement DU Quebec now owns 653,375 shares of the conglomerate’s stock valued at $181,651,000 after purchasing an additional 295,187 shares in the last quarter. 79.05% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several equities analysts have recently weighed in on the stock. Wolfe Research raised shares of Danaher from a “peer perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $285.00 price target for the company in a research note on Thursday, October 31st. TD Cowen raised their target price on shares of Danaher from $310.00 to $315.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 23rd. Stifel Nicolaus boosted their price target on shares of Danaher from $250.00 to $265.00 and gave the stock a “hold” rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 23rd. Bank of America upgraded Danaher from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and set a $290.00 price objective for the company in a report on Friday, December 13th. Finally, Raymond James reduced their price target on Danaher from $300.00 to $275.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research report on Tuesday. Six investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and fifteen have issued a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $285.55.

Danaher Price Performance

DHR stock opened at $244.18 on Wednesday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.32, a quick ratio of 1.01 and a current ratio of 1.37. Danaher Co. has a 52-week low of $225.42 and a 52-week high of $281.70. The company has a market capitalization of $176.36 billion, a P/E ratio of 46.60, a PEG ratio of 4.30 and a beta of 0.83. The company has a fifty day moving average price of $234.75 and a 200-day moving average price of $253.50.

Danaher (NYSE:DHR) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, October 22nd. The conglomerate reported $1.71 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.57 by $0.14. The company had revenue of $5.80 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $5.59 billion. Danaher had a return on equity of 10.62% and a net margin of 16.39%. The business’s quarterly revenue was up 3.1% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm posted $2.02 earnings per share. As a group, equities analysts expect that Danaher Co. will post 7.49 EPS for the current year.

Danaher Announces Dividend

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, January 31st. Shareholders of record on Friday, December 27th will be given a dividend of $0.27 per share. The ex-dividend date is Friday, December 27th. This represents a $1.08 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.44%. Danaher’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 20.61%.

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.