Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Group Inc. Has $119.05 Million Holdings in Bio-Techne Corp (NASDAQ:TECH)

Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Group Inc. cut its stake in Bio-Techne Corp (NASDAQ:TECH - Free Report) by 0.5% in the first quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund owned 2,030,535 shares of the biotechnology company's stock after selling 10,305 shares during the period. Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Group Inc. owned 1.28% of Bio-Techne worth $119,050,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

A number of other institutional investors also recently modified their holdings of the stock. Vanguard Group Inc. raised its stake in shares of Bio-Techne by 1.5% in the fourth quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 18,594,608 shares of the biotechnology company's stock worth $1,339,370,000 after acquiring an additional 275,644 shares during the last quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD raised its stake in shares of Bio-Techne by 13.1% in the fourth quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD now owns 10,654,267 shares of the biotechnology company's stock worth $767,428,000 after acquiring an additional 1,229,954 shares during the last quarter. Ameriprise Financial Inc. raised its stake in shares of Bio-Techne by 7.2% in the fourth quarter. Ameriprise Financial Inc. now owns 4,702,942 shares of the biotechnology company's stock worth $338,756,000 after acquiring an additional 317,349 shares during the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC raised its stake in shares of Bio-Techne by 2.5% in the fourth quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 4,001,296 shares of the biotechnology company's stock worth $287,488,000 after acquiring an additional 98,660 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Invesco Ltd. grew its position in shares of Bio-Techne by 10.4% during the 4th quarter. Invesco Ltd. now owns 3,820,464 shares of the biotechnology company's stock worth $275,188,000 after buying an additional 358,756 shares during the period. 98.95% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

TECH has been the topic of several analyst reports. Royal Bank Of Canada cut their price objective on shares of Bio-Techne from $72.00 to $63.00 and set a "sector perform" rating on the stock in a report on Thursday, May 8th. UBS Group lowered their target price on shares of Bio-Techne from $95.00 to $70.00 and set a "buy" rating for the company in a report on Friday, May 9th. Evercore ISI started coverage on shares of Bio-Techne in a report on Tuesday, March 18th. They set an "outperform" rating and a $75.00 target price for the company. Wells Fargo & Company started coverage on shares of Bio-Techne in a report on Friday, May 30th. They set an "overweight" rating and a $59.00 target price for the company. Finally, Benchmark reaffirmed a "buy" rating and set a $75.00 target price on shares of Bio-Techne in a report on Thursday, June 5th. Seven investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and five have issued a buy rating to the company's stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company currently has an average rating of "Hold" and an average target price of $72.00.

Bio-Techne Trading Up 1.2%

Shares of TECH stock traded up $0.63 on Tuesday, hitting $52.08. The stock had a trading volume of 2,532,628 shares, compared to its average volume of 1,448,220. Bio-Techne Corp has a twelve month low of $46.01 and a twelve month high of $83.62. The firm has a market cap of $8.16 billion, a P/E ratio of 63.51, a PEG ratio of 2.72 and a beta of 1.39. The company has a current ratio of 3.71, a quick ratio of 2.58 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.16. The company has a fifty day moving average price of $49.71 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $60.10.

Bio-Techne (NASDAQ:TECH - Get Free Report) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, May 7th. The biotechnology company reported $0.56 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.51 by $0.05. Bio-Techne had a net margin of 10.89% and a return on equity of 13.17%. The company had revenue of $316.18 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $317.92 million. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business earned $0.48 EPS. The firm's revenue was up 4.2% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, analysts forecast that Bio-Techne Corp will post 1.67 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Bio-Techne Announces Dividend

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, May 30th. Investors of record on Monday, May 19th were paid a $0.08 dividend. This represents a $0.32 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.61%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Monday, May 19th. Bio-Techne's payout ratio is presently 39.02%.

Bio-Techne declared that its Board of Directors has authorized a share buyback program on Wednesday, May 7th that authorizes the company to repurchase $500.00 million in shares. This repurchase authorization authorizes the biotechnology company to purchase up to 6.5% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares repurchase programs are often an indication that the company's management believes its shares are undervalued.

About Bio-Techne

Bio-Techne Corporation, together with its subsidiaries, develops, manufactures, and sells life science reagents, instruments, and services for the research and clinical diagnostic markets in the United States, the United Kingdom, rest of Europe, Middle East, and Africa, Greater China, rest of Asia-Pacific, and internationally.