Roman Butler Fullerton & Co. Buys 53 Shares of Danaher Co. (NYSE:DHR)

Roman Butler Fullerton & Co. grew its stake in shares of Danaher Co. (NYSE:DHR) by 4.5% during the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the SEC. The fund owned 1,240 shares of the conglomerate’s stock after buying an additional 53 shares during the quarter. Roman Butler Fullerton & Co.’s holdings in Danaher were worth $289,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also recently modified their holdings of the stock. BKM Wealth Management LLC bought a new stake in shares of Danaher in the fourth quarter worth $27,000. OFI Invest Asset Management bought a new stake in shares of Danaher in the third quarter worth $30,000. First Capital Advisors Group LLC. bought a new stake in shares of Danaher in the second quarter worth $32,000. BOK Financial Private Wealth Inc. bought a new stake in shares of Danaher in the third quarter worth $34,000. Finally, Rakuten Securities Inc. bought a new stake in shares of Danaher in the fourth quarter worth $36,000. Institutional investors own 79.05% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

DHR has been the topic of several recent analyst reports. StockNews.com lowered shares of Danaher from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Wednesday, January 31st. HSBC upgraded shares of Danaher from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and boosted their target price for the company from $250.00 to $280.00 in a report on Wednesday. Barclays boosted their target price on shares of Danaher from $240.00 to $260.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a report on Wednesday, April 10th. KeyCorp boosted their target price on shares of Danaher from $260.00 to $290.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Thursday, February 1st. Finally, Royal Bank of Canada upped their price objective on shares of Danaher from $254.00 to $282.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Wednesday, January 31st. Six equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and ten have given a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $268.27.

Danaher Trading Down 1.3 %

NYSE:DHR opened at $236.37 on Friday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.31, a current ratio of 1.68 and a quick ratio of 1.37. The firm has a 50-day moving average of $249.09 and a 200-day moving average of $229.90. The company has a market cap of $175.04 billion, a PE ratio of 36.99, a PEG ratio of 3.64 and a beta of 0.83. Danaher Co. has a one year low of $182.09 and a one year high of $259.00.

Danaher (NYSE:DHR) last posted its earnings results on Tuesday, January 30th. The conglomerate reported $2.09 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $1.91 by $0.18. The company had revenue of $6.41 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $6.10 billion. Danaher had a net margin of 17.26% and a return on equity of 12.25%. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was down 10.2% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the firm posted $2.87 earnings per share. As a group, equities research analysts expect that Danaher Co. will post 7.62 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Danaher Increases Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, April 26th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, March 28th will be given a $0.27 dividend. This represents a $1.08 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.46%. This is an increase from Danaher’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.24. The ex-dividend date is Wednesday, March 27th. Danaher’s dividend payout ratio is presently 16.90%.

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 shares were 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 directly 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 Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. In other Danaher news, SVP Georgeann Couchara sold 2,622 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, February 13th. The shares were 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 directly 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 Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. Also, SVP Daniel Raskas sold 23,757 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, February 26th. The stock was sold at an average price of $252.00, for a total transaction of $5,986,764.00. Following the sale, the senior vice president now owns 38,102 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $9,601,704. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last ninety days, insiders sold 32,957 shares of company stock valued at $8,265,802. Corporate insiders own 11.10% 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.