Arbejdsmarkedets Tillaegspension Raises Holdings in Qiagen N.V. $QGEN

Key Points

• Arbejdsmarkedets Tillaegspension boosted its Qiagen stake by 24.8% in the first quarter, buying 126,405 additional shares and bringing its total holding to 636,918 shares worth about $25.5 million.
• Several other institutional investors also added to or initiated positions in Qiagen, and hedge funds and other institutions now own about 70% of the company’s stock.
• Analysts currently have a Hold consensus on Qiagen, with a consensus price target of $43.15; the company also recently raised its annual dividend to $0.35 per share from $0.26.

Arbejdsmarkedets Tillaegspension lifted its stake in Qiagen N.V. (NYSE:QGEN - Free Report) by 24.8% in the 1st quarter, according to its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The fund owned 636,918 shares of the company's stock after purchasing an additional 126,405 shares during the quarter. Arbejdsmarkedets Tillaegspension owned about 0.31% of Qiagen worth $25,502,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Other large investors also recently bought and sold shares of the company. Innealta Capital LLC acquired a new position in Qiagen during the 1st quarter valued at approximately $205,000. Hsbc Holdings PLC acquired a new stake in shares of Qiagen during the first quarter worth $12,916,000. Waterfront Wealth Inc. acquired a new stake in shares of Qiagen during the first quarter worth $1,050,000. Frank Rimerman Advisors LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Qiagen during the first quarter valued at $373,000. Finally, Canvas Wealth Advisors LLC grew its holdings in shares of Qiagen by 75.4% during the first quarter. Canvas Wealth Advisors LLC now owns 15,838 shares of the company's stock valued at $634,000 after buying an additional 6,808 shares during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 70.00% of the company's stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of equities analysts recently issued reports on the company. Morgan Stanley upgraded Qiagen from an "overweight" rating to an "overweight" rating and raised their target price for the stock from $40.00 to $42.00 in a research note on Tuesday, June 23rd. Kepler Capital Markets set a $38.60 price target on Qiagen and gave the company a "hold" rating in a research note on Thursday, June 25th. TD Cowen reissued a "hold" rating and issued a $40.00 price objective (down from $46.00) on shares of Qiagen in a report on Thursday, May 7th. Zacks Research upgraded Qiagen from a "strong sell" rating to a "hold" rating in a research note on Wednesday, April 29th. Finally, Barclays set a $38.00 target price on Qiagen and gave the stock an "equal weight" rating in a report on Wednesday, April 29th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, four have issued a Buy rating, seven have given a Hold rating and one has issued a Sell rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, Qiagen currently has a consensus rating of "Hold" and a consensus target price of $43.15.

Qiagen Trading Up 0.0%

NYSE QGEN opened at $41.52 on Monday. The company has a market capitalization of $8.56 billion, a PE ratio of 21.68, a P/E/G ratio of 4.14 and a beta of 0.64. The company has a fifty day moving average of $36.59 and a 200 day moving average of $42.56. Qiagen N.V. has a 1 year low of $32.53 and a 1 year high of $57.81. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.49, a current ratio of 3.21 and a quick ratio of 2.57.

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

Qiagen Increases Dividend

The business also recently announced an annual dividend, which will be paid on Tuesday, July 14th. Stockholders of record on Tuesday, July 7th will be paid a dividend of $0.35 per share. This is an increase from Qiagen's previous annual dividend of $0.26. This represents a dividend yield of 90.0%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Tuesday, July 7th. Qiagen's dividend payout ratio is presently 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.

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