Korea Investment CORP Sells 93,167 Shares of Qiagen N.V. $QGEN

Key Points

• Korea Investment CORP sold 93,167 shares of Qiagen, trimming its stake by 37.6% to 154,634 shares (about 0.07% of the company) worth roughly $6.85 million at quarter-end.
• Allianz Asset Management increased its position by 53.7% to 1,529,224 shares (≈$68.03 million), and institutional investors now own about 70% of Qiagen.
• Analysts have a consensus rating of Hold with a $55.20 target; Qiagen recently slightly beat estimates with $0.62 EPS and $540.4M revenue, though the stock was trading near $41.04.

Korea Investment CORP trimmed its holdings in shares of Qiagen N.V. (NYSE:QGEN - Free Report) by 37.6% during the 3rd quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund owned 154,634 shares of the company's stock after selling 93,167 shares during the period. Korea Investment CORP owned approximately 0.07% of Qiagen worth $6,849,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Several other hedge funds have also recently modified their holdings of QGEN. Lingohr Asset Management GmbH bought a new stake in Qiagen in the 3rd quarter worth about $4,218,000. Gateway Investment Advisers LLC bought a new position in Qiagen during the 3rd quarter valued at about $1,197,000. SG Americas Securities LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Qiagen during the 3rd quarter valued at about $1,032,000. Great Lakes Advisors LLC bought a new stake in shares of Qiagen in the third quarter worth approximately $3,677,000. Finally, Allianz Asset Management GmbH grew its stake in shares of Qiagen by 53.7% in the third quarter. Allianz Asset Management GmbH now owns 1,529,224 shares of the company's stock worth $68,028,000 after acquiring an additional 534,527 shares during the period. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 70.00% of the company's stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of research analysts recently weighed in on the stock. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft downgraded shares of Qiagen from a "buy" rating to a "hold" rating and increased their price objective for the company from $52.00 to $54.00 in a research report on Thursday, January 22nd. TD Cowen reiterated a "hold" rating on shares of Qiagen in a research note on Friday, February 6th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. increased their price target on Qiagen from $55.00 to $60.00 and gave the company an "overweight" rating in a report on Friday, February 6th. Zacks Research downgraded Qiagen from a "hold" rating to a "strong sell" rating in a research note on Monday. Finally, UBS Group set a $52.00 price objective on Qiagen in a report on Monday, February 9th. Four research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, eight have issued a Hold rating and one has issued a Sell rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has a consensus rating of "Hold" and a consensus target price of $55.20.

Qiagen Stock Performance

QGEN opened at $41.04 on Friday. The stock has a market capitalization of $8.67 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 20.35, a PEG ratio of 2.01 and a beta of 0.70. The company has a fifty day moving average of $49.45 and a 200 day moving average of $48.94. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.44, a quick ratio of 3.31 and a current ratio of 3.90. Qiagen N.V. has a fifty-two week low of $40.14 and a fifty-two week high of $57.81.

Qiagen (NYSE:QGEN - Get Free Report) last issued its earnings results on Thursday, February 5th. The company reported $0.62 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.61 by $0.01. The firm had revenue of $540.42 million for the quarter, compared to analysts' expectations of $528.53 million. Qiagen had a return on equity of 14.56% and a net margin of 20.33%.The business's revenue was up 3.6% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the firm posted $0.61 earnings per share. As a group, sell-side analysts forecast that Qiagen N.V. will post 2.26 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

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.

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