Lazard Asset Management LLC Cuts Stake in Qiagen N.V. $QGEN

Lazard Asset Management LLC cut its stake in Qiagen N.V. (NYSE:QGEN) by 13.9% during the 1st quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The fund owned 80,718 shares of the company’s stock after selling 12,998 shares during the period. Lazard Asset Management LLC’s holdings in Qiagen were worth $3,235,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other institutional investors have also recently bought and sold shares of QGEN. Vanguard Group Inc. boosted its holdings in shares of Qiagen by 1.3% in the 4th quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 9,542,944 shares of the company’s stock valued at $433,871,000 after purchasing an additional 118,135 shares during the last quarter. Baader Bank Aktiengesellschaft acquired a new stake in shares of Qiagen during the 1st quarter worth $1,368,000. Massachusetts Financial Services Co. MA increased its holdings in shares of Qiagen by 1.1% during the 4th quarter. Massachusetts Financial Services Co. MA now owns 24,205,881 shares of the company’s stock worth $1,088,538,000 after buying an additional 264,921 shares during the last quarter. Oak Harvest Investment Services raised its position in shares of Qiagen by 17.7% in the 4th quarter. Oak Harvest Investment Services now owns 98,722 shares of the company’s stock worth $4,440,000 after buying an additional 14,845 shares during the period. Finally, M&T Bank Corp purchased a new position in shares of Qiagen in the 4th quarter worth $2,186,000. 70.00% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of research firms have issued reports on QGEN. Kepler Capital Markets set a $38.60 price target on Qiagen and gave the company a “hold” rating in a research report on Thursday, June 25th. Robert W. Baird set a $43.00 price objective on Qiagen and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Wednesday, April 29th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. reduced their price objective on Qiagen from $60.00 to $45.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a research note on Wednesday, April 29th. Berenberg Bank set a $45.50 target price on Qiagen and gave the stock a “hold” rating in a report on Tuesday, July 14th. Finally, Weiss Ratings downgraded shares of Qiagen from a “hold (c-)” rating to a “sell (d+)” rating in a research report on Friday, May 29th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, four have assigned a Buy rating, eight have issued a Hold rating and one has issued a Sell rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company currently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $43.34.

Qiagen Stock Up 0.3%

Shares of NYSE QGEN opened at $41.56 on Friday. Qiagen N.V. has a 12-month low of $32.53 and a 12-month high of $57.81. The company has a market cap of $8.56 billion, a P/E ratio of 21.70, a P/E/G ratio of 4.13 and a beta of 0.64. The company has a current ratio of 3.21, a quick ratio of 2.57 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.49. The stock has a fifty day moving average price of $38.82 and a 200 day moving average price of $41.88.

Qiagen (NYSE:QGEN) last released its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, May 7th. The company reported $0.54 EPS for the quarter, meeting the consensus estimate of $0.54. The company had revenue of $492.32 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $496.15 million. Qiagen had a return on equity of 14.40% and a net margin of 19.16%.During the same period last year, the company posted $0.56 earnings per share. Research analysts anticipate that Qiagen N.V. will post 2.43 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Qiagen Increases Dividend

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

Qiagen Profile

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.