West Oak Capital LLC Lowers Stock Holdings in Veralto Co. (NYSE:VLTO)

West Oak Capital LLC lessened its holdings in Veralto Co. (NYSE:VLTO) by 19.9% during the fourth quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The firm owned 418 shares of the company’s stock after selling 104 shares during the quarter. West Oak Capital LLC’s holdings in Veralto were worth $45,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

A number of other institutional investors also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the business. Canada Pension Plan Investment Board raised its holdings in Veralto by 32.9% in the 2nd quarter. Canada Pension Plan Investment Board now owns 243,600 shares of the company’s stock valued at $23,256,000 after acquiring an additional 60,300 shares during the last quarter. Nordea Investment Management AB raised its holdings in Veralto by 34.6% in the 4th quarter. Nordea Investment Management AB now owns 3,923,747 shares of the company’s stock valued at $400,928,000 after acquiring an additional 1,009,170 shares during the last quarter. PEAK6 Investments LLC raised its holdings in Veralto by 246.3% in the 3rd quarter. PEAK6 Investments LLC now owns 8,733 shares of the company’s stock valued at $977,000 after acquiring an additional 6,211 shares during the last quarter. Northstar Asset Management Inc. raised its holdings in Veralto by 22.5% in the 3rd quarter. Northstar Asset Management Inc. now owns 78,326 shares of the company’s stock valued at $8,762,000 after acquiring an additional 14,398 shares during the last quarter. Finally, The Manufacturers Life Insurance Company raised its holdings in Veralto by 10.2% in the 3rd quarter. The Manufacturers Life Insurance Company now owns 163,227 shares of the company’s stock valued at $18,259,000 after acquiring an additional 15,048 shares during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 91.28% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of research firms have recently commented on VLTO. Stifel Nicolaus dropped their price objective on Veralto from $119.00 to $117.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a report on Wednesday, December 11th. Royal Bank of Canada upped their price objective on Veralto from $108.00 to $111.00 and gave the stock a “sector perform” rating in a report on Friday, October 25th. BMO Capital Markets upped their price objective on Veralto from $117.00 to $119.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Monday, September 30th. Finally, Jefferies Financial Group assumed coverage on Veralto in a report on Thursday, December 12th. They set a “buy” rating and a $125.00 price objective for the company. Six research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and five have given a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $111.27.

Veralto Stock Down 1.9 %

Shares of Veralto stock opened at $100.10 on Friday. The company has a current ratio of 2.13, a quick ratio of 1.87 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.35. The company has a fifty day moving average price of $104.19 and a 200 day moving average price of $105.57. The stock has a market cap of $24.76 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 30.90, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 4.30 and a beta of 1.06. Veralto Co. has a twelve month low of $73.91 and a twelve month high of $115.00.

Veralto (NYSE:VLTO) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, October 23rd. The company reported $0.89 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.85 by $0.04. The company had revenue of $1.31 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $1.30 billion. Veralto had a net margin of 15.69% and a return on equity of 52.85%. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 4.7% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the prior year, the company posted $0.75 EPS. Equities research analysts forecast that Veralto Co. will post 3.48 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Veralto Increases Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, January 31st. Shareholders of record on Tuesday, December 31st will be given a $0.11 dividend. This is a boost from Veralto’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.09. This represents a $0.44 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.44%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Tuesday, December 31st. Veralto’s dividend payout ratio is presently 13.58%.

Insider Buying and Selling at Veralto

In other Veralto news, SVP Surekha Trivedi sold 752 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, November 1st. The shares were sold at an average price of $102.91, for a total value of $77,388.32. Following the completion of the transaction, the senior vice president now directly owns 10,413 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $1,071,601.83. This represents a 6.74 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. 0.31% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Veralto Company Profile

Veralto Corporation provides water analytics, water treatment, marking and coding, and packaging and color services worldwide. It operates through two segments, Water Quality (WQ) and Product Quality & Innovation (PQI). The WQ segment offers precision instrumentation and water treatment technologies to measure, analyze, and treat water in residential, commercial, municipal, industrial, research, and natural resource applications through the Hach, Trojan Technologies, and ChemTreat brands.