Illinois Municipal Retirement Fund Trims Holdings in Qiagen N.V. $QGEN

Illinois Municipal Retirement Fund lowered its stake in shares of Qiagen N.V. (NYSE:QGEN) by 24.6% in the first quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 40,718 shares of the company’s stock after selling 13,281 shares during the quarter. Illinois Municipal Retirement Fund’s holdings in Qiagen were worth $1,630,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also made changes to their positions in the stock. Boston Partners acquired a new stake in Qiagen in the third quarter valued at $179,450,000. Norges Bank acquired a new position in Qiagen during the 4th quarter worth $166,500,000. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP acquired a new position in Qiagen during the 3rd quarter worth $58,079,000. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD grew its holdings in Qiagen by 12.1% during the 4th quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD now owns 8,429,424 shares of the company’s stock worth $379,072,000 after acquiring an additional 906,589 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Deutsche Bank AG increased its position in shares of Qiagen by 9.7% in the 4th quarter. Deutsche Bank AG now owns 7,907,801 shares of the company’s stock worth $355,614,000 after purchasing an additional 697,342 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors own 70.00% of the company’s stock.

Qiagen Stock Up 0.1%

Shares of NYSE:QGEN opened at $40.53 on Wednesday. The stock has a market capitalization of $8.35 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 21.17, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 4.04 and a beta of 0.64. Qiagen N.V. has a 1-year low of $32.53 and a 1-year high of $57.81. The company’s fifty day moving average is $37.64 and its two-hundred day moving average is $42.23. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.49, a quick ratio of 2.57 and a current ratio of 3.21.

Qiagen (NYSE:QGEN) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, May 7th. The company reported $0.54 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, hitting analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.54. Qiagen had a net margin of 19.16% and a return on equity of 14.40%. The company had revenue of $492.32 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $496.15 million. During the same period last year, the firm posted $0.56 EPS. Equities analysts anticipate that Qiagen N.V. will post 2.43 EPS for the current year.

Qiagen Increases Dividend

The firm also recently announced an annual dividend, which was paid on Tuesday, July 14th. Shareholders of record on Tuesday, July 7th were issued a $0.35 dividend. This is an increase from Qiagen’s previous annual dividend of $0.26. This represents a yield of 90.0%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Tuesday, July 7th. Qiagen’s dividend payout ratio is 18.32%.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of brokerages have recently issued reports on QGEN. Morgan Stanley upgraded shares of Qiagen from an “overweight” rating to an “overweight” rating and upped their target price for the company from $40.00 to $42.00 in a research note on Tuesday, June 23rd. Wall Street Zen lowered Qiagen from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Saturday, March 28th. Weiss Ratings cut Qiagen from a “hold (c-)” rating to a “sell (d+)” rating in a research note on Friday, May 29th. Robert W. Baird set a $43.00 target price on Qiagen and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Wednesday, April 29th. Finally, Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft reiterated a “buy” rating and issued a $43.00 target price on shares of Qiagen in a research report on Thursday, April 30th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, four have issued a Buy rating, eight have given a Hold rating and one has issued a Sell rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $43.34.

Qiagen Company 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.