Legal & General Group Plc Has $1.18 Billion Stock Holdings in Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. (NYSE:TMO)

Legal & General Group Plc lowered its position in Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. (NYSE:TMO) by 24.1% in the fourth quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund owned 2,262,540 shares of the medical research company’s stock after selling 717,637 shares during the period. Legal & General Group Plc owned 0.59% of Thermo Fisher Scientific worth $1,177,041,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also modified their holdings of the company. Invesco Ltd. increased its stake in Thermo Fisher Scientific by 6.3% during the 4th quarter. Invesco Ltd. now owns 1,677,581 shares of the medical research company’s stock worth $872,728,000 after purchasing an additional 99,688 shares in the last quarter. Sierra Summit Advisors LLC grew its stake in shares of Thermo Fisher Scientific by 9.8% in the fourth quarter. Sierra Summit Advisors LLC now owns 9,405 shares of the medical research company’s stock valued at $4,893,000 after buying an additional 841 shares in the last quarter. Ritter Daniher Financial Advisory LLC DE raised its holdings in shares of Thermo Fisher Scientific by 35.1% in the 4th quarter. Ritter Daniher Financial Advisory LLC DE now owns 150 shares of the medical research company’s stock valued at $78,000 after purchasing an additional 39 shares during the period. Trek Financial LLC increased its holdings in shares of Thermo Fisher Scientific by 49.4% during the 4th quarter. Trek Financial LLC now owns 1,734 shares of the medical research company’s stock worth $902,000 after acquiring an additional 573 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Sepio Capital LP boosted its holdings in shares of Thermo Fisher Scientific by 3.3% during the 4th quarter. Sepio Capital LP now owns 4,036 shares of the medical research company’s stock worth $2,100,000 after buying an additional 130 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 89.23% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several research analysts have recently commented on the stock. Morgan Stanley raised their target price on shares of Thermo Fisher Scientific from $647.00 to $678.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Friday, January 31st. Royal Bank of Canada set a $693.00 target price on shares of Thermo Fisher Scientific in a research note on Friday, January 31st. Raymond James reiterated an “outperform” rating and issued a $667.00 price objective (up previously from $650.00) on shares of Thermo Fisher Scientific in a report on Monday, February 3rd. UBS Group raised their price objective on Thermo Fisher Scientific from $700.00 to $715.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, January 31st. Finally, StockNews.com upgraded Thermo Fisher Scientific from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a report on Tuesday, January 14th. Four research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and nineteen have issued a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, Thermo Fisher Scientific currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $653.23.

Insider Transactions at Thermo Fisher Scientific

In other Thermo Fisher Scientific news, CEO Marc N. Casper sold 10,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, March 4th. The stock was sold at an average price of $516.67, for a total transaction of $5,166,700.00. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 115,174 shares in the company, valued at $59,506,950.58. This represents a 7.99 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this link. Also, SVP Michael A. Boxer sold 3,775 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, March 10th. The stock was sold at an average price of $532.52, for a total value of $2,010,263.00. Following the transaction, the senior vice president now directly owns 10,816 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $5,759,736.32. This represents a 25.87 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last ninety days, insiders sold 23,900 shares of company stock worth $13,106,062. 0.34% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Thermo Fisher Scientific Stock Performance

Shares of NYSE TMO opened at $437.71 on Monday. The company’s fifty day moving average price is $532.01 and its 200 day moving average price is $547.03. The company has a market capitalization of $165.13 billion, a PE ratio of 26.48, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.99 and a beta of 0.86. Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. has a 1 year low of $411.12 and a 1 year high of $627.88. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.59, a quick ratio of 1.29 and a current ratio of 1.66.

Thermo Fisher Scientific (NYSE:TMO) last released its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, January 30th. The medical research company reported $6.10 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $5.94 by $0.16. Thermo Fisher Scientific had a net margin of 14.78% and a return on equity of 17.51%. On average, research analysts predict that Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. will post 23.28 earnings per share for the current year.

Thermo Fisher Scientific Increases Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Tuesday, April 15th. Shareholders of record on Friday, March 14th will be paid a dividend of $0.43 per share. This is a boost from Thermo Fisher Scientific’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.39. The ex-dividend date is Friday, March 14th. This represents a $1.72 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.39%. Thermo Fisher Scientific’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 10.41%.

Thermo Fisher Scientific Company Profile

Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc provides life sciences solutions, analytical instruments, specialty diagnostics, and laboratory products and biopharma services in the North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, and internationally. The company's Life Sciences Solutions segment offers reagents, instruments, and consumables for biological and medical research, discovery, and production of drugs and vaccines, as well as diagnosis of infections and diseases; and solutions include biosciences, genetic sciences, and bio production to pharmaceutical, biotechnology, agricultural, clinical, healthcare, academic, and government markets.