North Star Asset Management Inc. Buys Shares of 138,877 Avantor, Inc. $AVTR

North Star Asset Management Inc. acquired a new stake in shares of Avantor, Inc. (NYSE:AVTR) during the second quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The fund acquired 138,877 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $1,375,000.

Several other large investors have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the stock. BlackRock Inc. bought a new stake in shares of Avantor in the 2nd quarter valued at approximately $695,784,000. Wellington Management Group LLP bought a new position in Avantor during the fourth quarter valued at approximately $268,584,000. Engine Capital Management LP raised its position in Avantor by 65.8% during the first quarter. Engine Capital Management LP now owns 19,780,830 shares of the company’s stock valued at $155,082,000 after acquiring an additional 7,853,018 shares in the last quarter. Barrow Hanley Mewhinney & Strauss LLC acquired a new stake in Avantor in the second quarter valued at approximately $195,386,000. Finally, Morgan Stanley lifted its stake in Avantor by 179.4% in the fourth quarter. Morgan Stanley now owns 17,468,418 shares of the company’s stock valued at $200,188,000 after acquiring an additional 11,216,565 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 95.08% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several brokerages have recently commented on AVTR. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft restated a “hold” rating and set a $13.00 price target on shares of Avantor in a research note on Thursday, July 30th. Sanford C. Bernstein initiated coverage on shares of Avantor in a research note on Friday, June 26th. They issued a “market perform” rating and a $10.50 price objective for the company. UBS Group set a $8.00 price objective on shares of Avantor in a report on Wednesday, June 24th. Jefferies Financial Group raised shares of Avantor from an “underperform” rating to a “hold” rating and set a $13.00 target price on the stock in a research report on Wednesday, July 29th. Finally, Wolfe Research raised shares of Avantor from a “strong sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Thursday, July 30th. Two investment analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, fifteen have given a Hold rating and one has issued a Sell rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $12.00.

Avantor Stock Performance

AVTR opened at $14.59 on Friday. The stock has a market cap of $9.87 billion, a PE ratio of -17.37, a P/E/G ratio of 10.94 and a beta of 0.89. The company has a current ratio of 1.78, a quick ratio of 1.18 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.65. Avantor, Inc. has a 1 year low of $7.26 and a 1 year high of $15.93. The stock’s 50 day simple moving average is $12.02 and its 200-day simple moving average is $9.74.

Avantor (NYSE:AVTR) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, July 29th. The company reported $0.21 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.19 by $0.02. Avantor had a negative net margin of 8.81% and a positive return on equity of 9.92%. The firm had revenue of $1.69 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.61 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm posted $0.24 EPS. The business’s revenue for the quarter was up .5% on a year-over-year basis. Avantor has set its FY 2026 guidance at 0.800-0.830 EPS. Sell-side analysts forecast that Avantor, Inc. will post 0.81 EPS for the current year.

Avantor Profile

Avantor, Inc (NYSE:AVTR) is a global provider of mission-critical products and services to customers in the biopharma, healthcare, education & government, and advanced technologies & applied materials industries. The company delivers essential solutions that support research, development, production and safety applications. Its product portfolio spans from high-purity chemicals and reagents to biologics and cell culture media, as well as lab equipment, consumables and custom manufacturing services.

Avantor’s offerings are organized across two primary segments.