Benchmark Reaffirms Buy Rating for Bio-Techne (NASDAQ:TECH)

Benchmark reaffirmed their buy rating on shares of Bio-Techne (NASDAQ:TECH) in a report released on Thursday, Benzinga reports. The firm currently has a $95.00 target price on the biotechnology company’s stock.

Other equities research analysts have also issued research reports about the stock. Royal Bank of Canada reduced their price objective on shares of Bio-Techne from $85.00 to $75.00 and set a sector perform rating for the company in a research note on Friday, February 2nd. Stifel Nicolaus cut Bio-Techne from a buy rating to a hold rating and set a $65.00 target price for the company. in a research report on Friday, February 2nd. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft dropped their price target on shares of Bio-Techne from $85.00 to $82.00 and set a buy rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday, April 18th. Robert W. Baird raised their price target on Bio-Techne from $73.00 to $81.00 and gave the company an outperform rating in a research report on Thursday. Finally, Scotiabank initiated coverage on Bio-Techne in a research report on Thursday, February 8th. They set a sector outperform rating and a $80.00 price objective for the company. Three analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and nine have issued a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, the company presently has an average rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus target price of $80.50.

Bio-Techne Stock Performance

Shares of NASDAQ TECH opened at $77.29 on Thursday. Bio-Techne has a 12-month low of $51.79 and a 12-month high of $89.91. The company has a current ratio of 4.08, a quick ratio of 3.03 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.19. The company has a market cap of $12.15 billion, a PE ratio of 61.34, a P/E/G ratio of 9.62 and a beta of 1.23. The stock has a 50 day simple moving average of $69.76 and a 200-day simple moving average of $68.55.

Bio-Techne (NASDAQ:TECH) last released its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, May 1st. The biotechnology company reported $0.48 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.45 by $0.03. Bio-Techne had a return on equity of 13.60% and a net margin of 17.59%. The business had revenue of $303.43 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $292.36 million. During the same quarter last year, the company posted $0.47 EPS. Bio-Techne’s revenue for the quarter was up 3.2% on a year-over-year basis. On average, equities research analysts forecast that Bio-Techne will post 1.52 EPS for the current year.

Bio-Techne Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, May 24th. Stockholders of record on Monday, May 13th will be paid a $0.08 dividend. This represents a $0.32 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.41%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, May 10th. Bio-Techne’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 25.40%.

Insider Transactions at Bio-Techne

In other news, Director Roeland Nusse sold 10,400 shares of Bio-Techne stock in a transaction on Thursday, March 7th. The shares were sold at an average price of $76.98, for a total transaction of $800,592.00. Following the transaction, the director now directly owns 43,097 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $3,317,607.06. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. 4.45% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Institutional Trading of Bio-Techne

Hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of the company. Norges Bank acquired a new position in Bio-Techne in the 4th quarter valued at about $119,771,000. Brown Advisory Inc. lifted its holdings in Bio-Techne by 1,094.6% during the 4th quarter. Brown Advisory Inc. now owns 809,635 shares of the biotechnology company’s stock worth $62,471,000 after purchasing an additional 741,860 shares during the last quarter. Massachusetts Financial Services Co. MA boosted its stake in Bio-Techne by 1,389.4% in the 4th quarter. Massachusetts Financial Services Co. MA now owns 784,543 shares of the biotechnology company’s stock valued at $60,535,000 after purchasing an additional 731,869 shares during the period. Corient Private Wealth LLC grew its stake in shares of Bio-Techne by 4,482.1% in the fourth quarter. Corient Private Wealth LLC now owns 633,790 shares of the biotechnology company’s stock valued at $48,903,000 after acquiring an additional 619,958 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Brown Capital Management LLC grew its position in shares of Bio-Techne by 12.4% during the 4th quarter. Brown Capital Management LLC now owns 3,550,990 shares of the biotechnology company’s stock worth $273,994,000 after purchasing an additional 392,986 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 98.95% of the company’s stock.

About Bio-Techne

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.