Bio-Techne Co. (NASDAQ:TECH) Shares Sold by Worldquant Millennium Advisors LLC

Worldquant Millennium Advisors LLC reduced its position in shares of Bio-Techne Co. (NASDAQ:TECH - Free Report) by 51.7% during the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 59,419 shares of the biotechnology company's stock after selling 63,515 shares during the quarter. Worldquant Millennium Advisors LLC's holdings in Bio-Techne were worth $4,280,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Several other hedge funds have also modified their holdings of the company. Vanguard Group Inc. boosted its stake in shares of Bio-Techne by 1.5% during the 4th 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 in the last quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD boosted its stake in shares of Bio-Techne by 13.1% during the 4th 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 in the last quarter. Ameriprise Financial Inc. boosted its stake in shares of Bio-Techne by 7.2% during the 4th 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 in the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC boosted its stake in shares of Bio-Techne by 2.5% during the 4th 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 in the last quarter. Finally, Invesco Ltd. boosted its stake 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 acquiring an additional 358,756 shares in the last quarter. 98.95% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several equities research analysts have recently issued reports on TECH shares. Robert W. Baird lowered shares of Bio-Techne from an "outperform" rating to a "neutral" rating and lowered their target price for the stock from $88.00 to $68.00 in a research note on Wednesday, February 19th. UBS Group lowered their target price on shares of Bio-Techne from $95.00 to $70.00 and set a "buy" rating on the stock in a research note on Friday, May 9th. Benchmark lowered their target price on shares of Bio-Techne from $95.00 to $75.00 and set a "buy" rating on the stock in a research note on Thursday, May 8th. Scotiabank raised their price target on shares of Bio-Techne from $88.00 to $90.00 and gave the company a "sector outperform" rating in a research note on Thursday, February 6th. Finally, KeyCorp reaffirmed a "sector weight" rating on shares of Bio-Techne in a research note on Wednesday, April 9th. Six analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and five have assigned a buy rating to the company's stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company currently has a consensus rating of "Hold" and an average target price of $73.44.

Bio-Techne Price Performance

Bio-Techne stock traded down $0.54 during midday trading on Friday, reaching $46.78. The company had a trading volume of 1,471,196 shares, compared to its average volume of 1,301,365. The company has a market capitalization of $7.33 billion, a P/E ratio of 47.25, a P/E/G ratio of 2.88 and a beta of 1.46. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.14, a current ratio of 3.94 and a quick ratio of 2.77. Bio-Techne Co. has a 12-month low of $46.01 and a 12-month high of $83.62. The firm's fifty day simple moving average is $52.10 and its 200-day simple moving average is $64.54.

Bio-Techne (NASDAQ:TECH - Get Free Report) last released its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, May 7th. The biotechnology company reported $0.56 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts' consensus estimates of $0.51 by $0.05. The company had revenue of $316.18 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $317.92 million. Bio-Techne had a net margin of 13.22% and a return on equity of 12.73%. Bio-Techne's quarterly revenue was up 4.2% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm earned $0.48 EPS. As a group, equities analysts anticipate that Bio-Techne Co. will post 1.67 EPS for the current year.

Bio-Techne Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, May 30th. Shareholders of record on Monday, May 19th will be issued a $0.08 dividend. The ex-dividend date is Monday, May 19th. This represents a $0.32 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.68%. Bio-Techne's payout ratio is 39.02%.

Bio-Techne announced that its board has approved a share buyback plan on Wednesday, May 7th that allows the company to repurchase $500.00 million in shares. This repurchase authorization allows the biotechnology company to buy up to 6.5% of its stock through open market purchases. Stock repurchase plans are often an indication that the company's management believes its shares are undervalued.

Bio-Techne Company Profile

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.