Illinois Municipal Retirement Fund Cuts Holdings in Qiagen N.V. $QGEN

Illinois Municipal Retirement Fund lessened its position in shares of Qiagen N.V. (NYSE:QGEN) by 24.6% in the first quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The firm owned 40,718 shares of the company’s stock after selling 13,281 shares during the period. Illinois Municipal Retirement Fund’s holdings in Qiagen were worth $1,630,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

A number of other institutional investors have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in QGEN. Massachusetts Financial Services Co. MA lifted its stake in shares of Qiagen by 1.1% in the 4th quarter. Massachusetts Financial Services Co. MA now owns 24,205,881 shares of the company’s stock valued at $1,088,538,000 after purchasing an additional 264,921 shares in the last quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. increased its position in Qiagen by 1.3% during the 4th quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 9,542,944 shares of the company’s stock worth $433,871,000 after purchasing an additional 118,135 shares in the last quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD increased its position in Qiagen by 12.1% during the 4th quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD now owns 8,429,424 shares of the company’s stock worth $379,072,000 after purchasing an additional 906,589 shares in the last quarter. Deutsche Bank AG raised its holdings in Qiagen by 9.7% in the fourth quarter. Deutsche Bank AG now owns 7,907,801 shares of the company’s stock valued at $355,614,000 after buying an additional 697,342 shares during the period. Finally, Amundi raised its holdings in Qiagen by 4.4% in the third quarter. Amundi now owns 4,290,273 shares of the company’s stock valued at $201,471,000 after buying an additional 181,509 shares during the period. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 70.00% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several equities research analysts have issued reports on the stock. Barclays set a $38.00 price objective on shares of Qiagen and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Wednesday, April 29th. Kepler Capital Markets set a $38.60 target price on shares of Qiagen and gave the company a “hold” rating in a research note on Thursday, June 25th. Stifel Nicolaus set a $36.00 target price on shares of Qiagen and gave the company a “hold” rating in a report on Monday, May 18th. Berenberg Bank set a $45.50 price target on shares of Qiagen and gave the stock a “hold” rating in a research report on Tuesday, July 14th. Finally, Robert W. Baird set a $43.00 price target on shares of Qiagen and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research report on Wednesday, April 29th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, four have issued a Buy rating, eight have issued a Hold rating and one has issued a Sell rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, Qiagen currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $43.34.

Qiagen Trading Up 0.1%

QGEN opened at $40.53 on Wednesday. The firm has a market capitalization of $8.35 billion, a P/E ratio of 21.17, a P/E/G ratio of 4.04 and a beta of 0.64. The firm’s 50 day moving average is $37.64 and its 200-day moving average is $42.23. Qiagen N.V. has a 52-week low of $32.53 and a 52-week high of $57.81. The company has a quick ratio of 2.57, a current ratio of 3.21 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.49.

Qiagen (NYSE:QGEN) last announced its earnings results on Thursday, May 7th. The company reported $0.54 earnings per share for the quarter, meeting the consensus estimate of $0.54. The business had revenue of $492.32 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $496.15 million. Qiagen had a net margin of 19.16% and a return on equity of 14.40%. During the same period in the prior year, the firm earned $0.56 earnings per share. Analysts expect that Qiagen N.V. will post 2.43 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Qiagen Increases Dividend

The firm also recently announced an annual dividend, which was paid on Tuesday, July 14th. Stockholders of record on Tuesday, July 7th were paid a dividend of $0.35 per share. This is a boost from Qiagen’s previous annual dividend of $0.26. This represents a dividend yield of 90.0%. The ex-dividend date was Tuesday, July 7th. Qiagen’s payout ratio is 18.32%.

About Qiagen

Qiagen NV (NYSE: QGEN) is a global provider of sample and assay technologies designed to enable molecular testing in the fields of molecular diagnostics, applied testing, academic research and pharmaceutical development. The company’s solutions span the full workflow of nucleic acid and protein analysis, offering customers standardized kits, instruments and software tools that streamline the preparation, detection and quantification of DNA, RNA and proteins.

The company’s product portfolio includes nucleic acid extraction and purification systems, polymerase chain reaction (PCR) reagents and instrumentation, digital PCR platforms, next-generation sequencing (NGS) library‐preparation kits and proteomics solutions.