Insider Buying: Avantor (NYSE:AVTR) Director Buys 125,000 Shares of Stock

Avantor, Inc. (NYSE:AVTR) Director Sanjeev Mehra bought 125,000 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, March 10th. The shares were bought at an average cost of $8.01 per share, with a total value of $1,001,250.00. Following the completion of the purchase, the director directly owned 475,000 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $3,804,750. This trade represents a 35.71% increase in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link.

Avantor Trading Up 2.1%

AVTR stock traded up $0.17 during trading on Wednesday, hitting $8.32. The company had a trading volume of 9,661,164 shares, compared to its average volume of 12,524,850. The firm has a market capitalization of $5.68 billion, a P/E ratio of -10.67, a PEG ratio of 3.20 and a beta of 0.97. Avantor, Inc. has a 52-week low of $7.82 and a 52-week high of $17.11. The company has a 50 day simple moving average of $10.57 and a 200-day simple moving average of $11.77. The company has a quick ratio of 1.18, a current ratio of 1.78 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.70.

Avantor (NYSE:AVTR) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, February 11th. The company reported $0.22 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.21 by $0.01. The company had revenue of $1.66 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.64 billion. Avantor had a negative net margin of 8.09% and a positive return on equity of 10.45%. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was down 1.4% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter last year, the business posted $0.27 EPS. Avantor has set its FY 2026 guidance at 0.770-0.830 EPS. As a group, research analysts forecast that Avantor, Inc. will post 1.06 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

AVTR has been the topic of several research analyst reports. Zacks Research cut Avantor from a “hold” rating to a “strong sell” rating in a research note on Friday, February 13th. Robert W. Baird set a $11.00 target price on Avantor in a research report on Thursday, February 12th. Citigroup lowered their target price on Avantor from $13.00 to $11.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a report on Thursday, February 12th. Evercore set a $10.00 price target on Avantor in a research report on Wednesday, February 11th. Finally, Jefferies Financial Group restated an “underperform” rating and set a $8.00 price target on shares of Avantor in a research note on Thursday, February 12th. Three equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, ten have assigned a Hold rating and three have issued a Sell rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Avantor presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $11.80.

Institutional Trading of Avantor

Several hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of AVTR. Wellington Management Group LLP bought a new position in shares of Avantor in the 4th quarter worth $268,584,000. Greenhaven Associates Inc. bought a new stake in Avantor during the third quarter valued at about $228,528,000. Dodge & Cox grew its stake in Avantor by 17.1% in the second quarter. Dodge & Cox now owns 117,433,484 shares of the company’s stock valued at $1,580,655,000 after purchasing an additional 17,170,761 shares during the last quarter. London Co. of Virginia purchased a new position in Avantor in the third quarter valued at about $159,669,000. Finally, Morgan Stanley raised its holdings in Avantor by 179.4% in the fourth quarter. Morgan Stanley now owns 17,468,418 shares of the company’s stock worth $200,188,000 after purchasing an additional 11,216,565 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors own 95.08% of the company’s stock.

About Avantor

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.