DekaBank Deutsche Girozentrale Sells 643 Shares of Bio-Techne Co. (NASDAQ:TECH)

DekaBank Deutsche Girozentrale lowered its position in Bio-Techne Co. (NASDAQ:TECH) by 3.4% during the 3rd quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The fund owned 18,187 shares of the biotechnology company’s stock after selling 643 shares during the period. DekaBank Deutsche Girozentrale’s holdings in Bio-Techne were worth $1,421,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other hedge funds have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD grew its holdings in shares of Bio-Techne by 92.1% during the first quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD now owns 5,746,119 shares of the biotechnology company’s stock valued at $404,470,000 after buying an additional 2,755,065 shares during the last quarter. Mackenzie Financial Corp boosted its stake in Bio-Techne by 8.2% during the 2nd quarter. Mackenzie Financial Corp now owns 2,862,260 shares of the biotechnology company’s stock valued at $205,081,000 after purchasing an additional 216,044 shares during the last quarter. Massachusetts Financial Services Co. MA increased its holdings in Bio-Techne by 3.5% during the 2nd quarter. Massachusetts Financial Services Co. MA now owns 2,589,799 shares of the biotechnology company’s stock worth $185,559,000 after purchasing an additional 88,257 shares in the last quarter. Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Holdings Inc. raised its stake in shares of Bio-Techne by 20.4% in the second quarter. Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Holdings Inc. now owns 1,714,994 shares of the biotechnology company’s stock worth $122,879,000 after purchasing an additional 290,510 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Janus Henderson Group PLC lifted its holdings in shares of Bio-Techne by 1.3% in the first quarter. Janus Henderson Group PLC now owns 995,824 shares of the biotechnology company’s stock valued at $70,095,000 after purchasing an additional 12,991 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 98.95% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of research firms recently commented on TECH. Scotiabank increased their price target on Bio-Techne from $83.00 to $88.00 and gave the company a “sector outperform” rating in a research report on Thursday. Royal Bank of Canada lowered their target price on shares of Bio-Techne from $72.00 to $70.00 and set a “sector perform” rating for the company in a report on Thursday, August 8th. Robert W. Baird boosted their price target on shares of Bio-Techne from $82.00 to $84.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Thursday. Benchmark reiterated a “buy” rating and issued a $95.00 price objective on shares of Bio-Techne in a research note on Tuesday, August 13th. Finally, StockNews.com raised shares of Bio-Techne from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday. Three equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and seven have assigned a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the company currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $81.78.

Bio-Techne Stock Performance

Shares of TECH stock opened at $75.31 on Friday. Bio-Techne Co. has a 52 week low of $52.99 and a 52 week high of $85.57. The firm’s 50-day simple moving average is $73.75 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $74.60. The firm has a market cap of $11.95 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 80.12, a P/E/G ratio of 5.33 and a beta of 1.28. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.14, a quick ratio of 2.75 and a current ratio of 4.56.

Bio-Techne (NASDAQ:TECH) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, August 7th. The biotechnology company reported $0.49 EPS for the quarter, hitting analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.49. Bio-Techne had a net margin of 12.86% and a return on equity of 12.76%. The company had revenue of $306.10 million for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $306.49 million. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm posted $0.56 EPS. Bio-Techne’s revenue was up 1.6% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, equities analysts forecast that Bio-Techne Co. will post 1.7 earnings per share for the current year.

Bio-Techne Dividend Announcement

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, November 22nd. Stockholders of record on Monday, November 11th will be paid a dividend of $0.08 per share. The ex-dividend date is Friday, November 8th. This represents a $0.32 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.42%. Bio-Techne’s payout ratio is 34.04%.

Bio-Techne Company Profile

Bio-Techne Corporation, together with its subsidiaries, develops, manufactures, and sells life science reagents, instruments, and services for the research and clinical diagnostic markets in the United States, the United Kingdom, rest of Europe, Middle East, and Africa, Greater China, rest of Asia-Pacific, and internationally.