NorthRock Partners LLC Buys 2,245 Shares of Bio-Techne Corp $TECH

NorthRock Partners LLC grew its stake in shares of Bio-Techne Corp (NASDAQ:TECH) by 32.4% in the 2nd quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The fund owned 9,181 shares of the biotechnology company’s stock after acquiring an additional 2,245 shares during the period. NorthRock Partners LLC’s holdings in Bio-Techne were worth $472,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently bought and sold shares of the company. Select Equity Group L.P. grew its position in shares of Bio-Techne by 129.8% during the 1st quarter. Select Equity Group L.P. now owns 5,366,003 shares of the biotechnology company’s stock worth $314,609,000 after buying an additional 3,030,644 shares in the last quarter. RGM Capital LLC purchased a new stake in Bio-Techne in the first quarter worth about $59,267,000. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD grew its holdings in Bio-Techne by 6.8% during the 1st quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD now owns 11,375,279 shares of the biotechnology company’s stock worth $666,933,000 after acquiring an additional 721,012 shares in the last quarter. Westfield Capital Management Co. LP purchased a new position in Bio-Techne during the 1st quarter valued at about $39,658,000. Finally, Brown Advisory Inc. raised its holdings in shares of Bio-Techne by 45.7% in the 1st quarter. Brown Advisory Inc. now owns 1,912,377 shares of the biotechnology company’s stock valued at $112,123,000 after purchasing an additional 599,982 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors own 98.95% of the company’s stock.

Bio-Techne Price Performance

Shares of NASDAQ TECH opened at $59.58 on Thursday. Bio-Techne Corp has a fifty-two week low of $46.01 and a fifty-two week high of $80.80. The company has a market cap of $9.28 billion, a PE ratio of 129.52, a P/E/G ratio of 3.78 and a beta of 1.48. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.18, a quick ratio of 2.38 and a current ratio of 3.46. The business has a 50-day simple moving average of $54.85 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $52.56.

Bio-Techne (NASDAQ:TECH) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, August 6th. The biotechnology company reported $0.53 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.50 by $0.03. Bio-Techne had a net margin of 6.02% and a return on equity of 13.43%. The firm had revenue of $316.96 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $315.14 million. During the same period last year, the firm posted $0.49 EPS. Bio-Techne’s revenue was up 3.6% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, equities analysts expect that Bio-Techne Corp will post 1.67 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Bio-Techne Announces Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, August 29th. Investors of record on Monday, August 18th were paid a $0.08 dividend. The ex-dividend date was Monday, August 18th. This represents a $0.32 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.5%. Bio-Techne’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 69.57%.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

TECH has been the topic of several research reports. Evercore ISI lifted their price objective on shares of Bio-Techne from $60.00 to $72.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Tuesday, October 7th. Cowen reiterated a “buy” rating on shares of Bio-Techne in a report on Tuesday. Royal Bank Of Canada upgraded Bio-Techne from a “hold” rating to a “moderate buy” rating in a research note on Wednesday, September 3rd. Zacks Research upgraded Bio-Techne from a “strong sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Monday, October 6th. Finally, Scotiabank reduced their target price on shares of Bio-Techne from $90.00 to $75.00 and set a “sector outperform” rating for the company in a report on Friday, July 11th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, nine have assigned a Buy rating, five have given a Hold rating and one has issued a Sell rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, Bio-Techne presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $70.58.

About Bio-Techne

Bio-Techne Corporation, together with its subsidiaries, develops, manufactures, and sells life science reagents, instruments, and services for the research and clinical diagnostic markets in the United States, the United Kingdom, rest of Europe, Middle East, and Africa, Greater China, rest of Asia-Pacific, and internationally.