Insider Buying: Neogen Co. (NASDAQ:NEOG) CEO Purchases 23,035 Shares of Stock

Neogen Co. (NASDAQ:NEOG) CEO John Edward Adent purchased 23,035 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, January 16th. The stock was bought at an average price of $11.03 per share, for a total transaction of $254,076.05. Following the purchase, the chief executive officer now owns 269,164 shares in the company, valued at $2,968,878.92. The trade was a 9.36 % increase in their position. The purchase was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is accessible through this link.

Neogen Stock Performance

NEOG traded down $0.05 on Thursday, hitting $11.31. The company’s stock had a trading volume of 2,820,579 shares, compared to its average volume of 3,167,535. Neogen Co. has a 12 month low of $10.72 and a 12 month high of $18.58. The firm has a market cap of $2.45 billion, a P/E ratio of -5.17 and a beta of 1.23. The company has a quick ratio of 2.79, a current ratio of 4.41 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.28. The company’s 50 day simple moving average is $13.32 and its 200-day simple moving average is $14.99.

Neogen (NASDAQ:NEOG) last issued its earnings results on Friday, January 10th. The company reported $0.11 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of ($0.01) by $0.12. Neogen had a negative net margin of 2.58% and a positive return on equity of 2.80%. The company had revenue of $231.30 million for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $227.16 million. During the same quarter last year, the company earned $0.11 EPS. The firm’s revenue was up .7% compared to the same quarter last year. Analysts forecast that Neogen Co. will post 0.5 EPS for the current year.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

NEOG has been the topic of a number of recent research reports. Guggenheim initiated coverage on Neogen in a research note on Thursday, December 19th. They set a “buy” rating and a $15.00 price objective on the stock. StockNews.com raised shares of Neogen to a “sell” rating in a research note on Monday, September 30th.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the stock. Avanza Fonder AB bought a new position in Neogen in the fourth quarter worth $169,000. Procyon Advisors LLC grew its holdings in shares of Neogen by 22.3% in the fourth quarter. Procyon Advisors LLC now owns 35,513 shares of the company’s stock worth $431,000 after acquiring an additional 6,467 shares during the period. Harbor Capital Advisors Inc. increased its position in shares of Neogen by 32.1% during the 4th quarter. Harbor Capital Advisors Inc. now owns 1,303,465 shares of the company’s stock valued at $15,824,000 after purchasing an additional 316,457 shares during the last quarter. Diversified Trust Co raised its position in Neogen by 7.1% in the fourth quarter. Diversified Trust Co now owns 74,446 shares of the company’s stock worth $904,000 after acquiring an additional 4,961 shares during the period. Finally, Franklin Resources Inc. increased its position in Neogen by 33.9% in the third quarter. Franklin Resources Inc. now owns 923,918 shares of the company’s stock worth $15,531,000 after buying an additional 233,796 shares in the last quarter. 96.73% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

About Neogen

Neogen Corporation, together with its subsidiaries, engages in the development, manufacture, and marketing of various products and services dedicated to food and animal safety worldwide. It operates through two segments, Food Safety and Animal Safety. The Food Safety segment offers diagnostic test kits and related products to detect dangerous and unintended substances in food and animal feed, including foodborne pathogens, spoilage organisms, natural toxins, food allergens, genetic modifications, ruminant by-products, meat speciation, drug residues, pesticide residues, and general sanitation concerns; and AccuPoint Advanced rapid sanitation test to detect the presence of adenosine triphosphate, a chemical found in living cells, as well as provides genomics-based diagnostic technology and software systems that help testers to objectively analyze and store their results and perform analysis on the results from multiple locations over extended periods.