Danaher Co. (NYSE:DHR) Raises Dividend to $0.32 Per Share

Danaher Co. (NYSE:DHR) announced a quarterly dividend on Thursday, February 20th, RTT News reports. Investors of record on Friday, March 28th will be paid a dividend of 0.32 per share by the conglomerate on Friday, April 25th. This represents a $1.28 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.61%. This is a boost from Danaher’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.27.

Danaher has raised its dividend by an average of 8.7% annually over the last three years. Danaher has a payout ratio of 12.6% meaning its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Equities analysts expect Danaher to earn $8.62 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $1.08 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 12.5%.

Danaher Trading Up 0.9 %

Shares of NYSE DHR opened at $209.86 on Friday. The stock has a market cap of $151.58 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 39.75, a PEG ratio of 2.61 and a beta of 0.83. The business has a 50 day simple moving average of $226.71 and a 200 day simple moving average of $247.11. Danaher has a 52 week low of $196.80 and a 52 week high of $281.70. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.31, a quick ratio of 1.05 and a current ratio of 1.40.

Danaher (NYSE:DHR) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, January 29th. The conglomerate reported $2.14 EPS for the quarter, meeting the consensus estimate of $2.14. Danaher had a return on equity of 10.82% and a net margin of 16.33%. During the same period in the previous year, the business posted $2.09 earnings per share. On average, research analysts predict that Danaher will post 7.67 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Insider Activity at Danaher

In related news, SVP Brian W. Ellis sold 5,700 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Thursday, January 30th. The stock was sold at an average price of $224.13, for a total value of $1,277,541.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the senior vice president now directly owns 20,230 shares in the company, valued at approximately $4,534,149.90. This represents a 21.98 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available through this hyperlink. 11.10% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several equities research analysts recently weighed in on DHR shares. Barclays reduced their target price on Danaher from $275.00 to $240.00 and set an “equal weight” rating for the company in a report on Thursday, January 30th. Jefferies Financial Group reduced their target price on Danaher from $285.00 to $260.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a report on Wednesday, January 29th. StockNews.com lowered Danaher from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Saturday, December 14th. Bank of America upgraded Danaher from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and set a $290.00 target price for the company in a report on Friday, December 13th. Finally, Wolfe Research upgraded Danaher from a “peer perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $285.00 target price for the company in a report on Thursday, October 31st. Seven equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and fifteen have given a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $278.00.

About Danaher

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.