Legal & General Group Plc Decreases Stake in Avantor, Inc. $AVTR

Legal & General Group Plc lessened its stake in shares of Avantor, Inc. (NYSE:AVTR) by 24.0% during the 2nd quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund owned 3,103,647 shares of the company’s stock after selling 981,003 shares during the period. Legal & General Group Plc owned approximately 0.46% of Avantor worth $41,775,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

A number of other hedge funds have also bought and sold shares of the stock. Neo Ivy Capital Management lifted its stake in shares of Avantor by 8,186.4% during the second quarter. Neo Ivy Capital Management now owns 140,372 shares of the company’s stock worth $1,889,000 after buying an additional 138,678 shares during the period. JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised its stake in Avantor by 22.4% in the 2nd quarter. JPMorgan Chase & Co. now owns 1,715,258 shares of the company’s stock worth $23,087,000 after acquiring an additional 314,257 shares during the last quarter. Entropy Technologies LP lifted its position in Avantor by 510.3% during the 2nd quarter. Entropy Technologies LP now owns 78,773 shares of the company’s stock worth $1,060,000 after acquiring an additional 65,866 shares during the period. Swiss National Bank grew its stake in Avantor by 7.5% during the 2nd quarter. Swiss National Bank now owns 2,062,800 shares of the company’s stock valued at $27,765,000 after purchasing an additional 143,100 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Westfield Capital Management Co. LP acquired a new position in shares of Avantor in the second quarter valued at about $207,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 95.08% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of equities research analysts recently commented on AVTR shares. Evercore ISI dropped their target price on Avantor from $16.00 to $14.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday, October 30th. Robert W. Baird upped their price objective on shares of Avantor from $15.00 to $17.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Friday, October 24th. Wells Fargo & Company cut their price objective on shares of Avantor from $19.00 to $16.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a research note on Monday, August 4th. Stifel Nicolaus set a $12.00 target price on shares of Avantor and gave the company a “hold” rating in a research report on Monday, August 4th. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. reaffirmed a “neutral” rating and issued a $12.00 price target (down from $14.00) on shares of Avantor in a report on Thursday, October 30th. Four investment analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and eleven have given a Hold rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, Avantor has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $14.42.

Avantor Price Performance

NYSE:AVTR opened at $11.74 on Thursday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.65, a current ratio of 1.49 and a quick ratio of 0.96. The company has a 50 day moving average price of $12.77 and a 200-day moving average price of $12.99. Avantor, Inc. has a 1-year low of $10.82 and a 1-year high of $23.32. The firm has a market cap of $8.00 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of -90.27, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 4.07 and a beta of 1.00.

Avantor (NYSE:AVTR) last released its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, October 29th. The company reported $0.22 EPS for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $0.23 by ($0.01). Avantor had a negative net margin of 1.25% and a positive return on equity of 10.91%. The firm had revenue of $1.62 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.65 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business posted $0.26 EPS. The firm’s quarterly revenue was down 5.3% compared to the same quarter last year. Avantor has set its FY 2025 guidance at 0.880-0.920 EPS. Equities research analysts forecast that Avantor, Inc. will post 1.06 EPS for the current year.

Insider Activity at Avantor

In other Avantor news, Director Gregory L. Summe bought 100,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Thursday, October 30th. The shares were purchased at an average cost of $11.25 per share, for a total transaction of $1,125,000.00. Following the transaction, the director directly owned 300,000 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $3,375,000. The trade was a 50.00% increase in their ownership of the stock. The purchase was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available through this hyperlink. 1.20% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Avantor Company Profile

Avantor, Inc engages in the provision of mission-critical products and services to customers in the biopharma, healthcare, education and government, advanced technologies, and applied materials industries in the Americas, Europe, Asia, the Middle East, and Africa. The company offers materials and consumables, such as purity chemicals and reagents, lab products and supplies, formulated silicone materials, customized excipients, customized single-use assemblies, process chromatography resins and columns, analytical sample prep kits, education and microbiology products, clinical trial kits, peristaltic pumps, and fluid handling tips.