1. Danaher Corp (NYSE:DHR)
Number of Hedge Fund Investors: 90
Democratic Congressman Ro Khanna, who’s involved in regular stock trading, bought a stake in Danaher Corp (NYSE:DHR) back in February, worth between $1,000 to $15,000. Last month, Republican Congress member Dan Newhouse piled into Danaher Corp (NYSE:DHR) shares by buying a stake in Danaher Corp (NYSE:DHR) at $245.87 per share. The transaction took place on April 10. Since then the stock is up about 0.9%.
Cooper Investors Global Equities Fund stated the following regarding Danaher Corporation (NYSE:DHR) in its first quarter 2024 investor letter:
“On the funding side, the portfolio fully exited Danaher Corporation (NYSE:DHR) during the quarter. We no longer see compelling Risk Adjusted Value Latency today with the shares rebounding 35% since the October lows and once again trading at a significant relative premium (50-60%), despite tough operating trends in the bioprocessing market. Having owned Danaher continuously for the past 14 years this is ‘the end of an era’ and so bears a brief tribute.
Danaher was the longest held stock in the portfolio having been initially purchased in July 2010. Investing alongside the Rales brothers has been an incredible experience. In returns generation, Danaher was a true 10-bagger; purchased at USD$25 a share and sold at ~USD$255, generating a return over the holding period of over 1,300% and an IRR of approximately 18%.
Yet its value has not merely been as a winning stock but also as a teacher, a source of idea generation, and a spin-off machine. Danaher was the original ‘Capital Allocator Champion’, through which we learned about the margin-expansionary benefits of focused business systems operating with continuous improvement – Kaizens running concurrently on the lab or factory floor. We also built an understanding of how Danaher operates its M&A philosophy, a major driver of its success – what to buy, when to buy, who to buy from, how to integrate, and how much to pay. Studying this allowed us to develop Pattern Recognition of ‘what good looks like’ when meeting similar companies. Without Danaher, we may never have owned Domino Printing Sciences, Constellation Software, Halma, Roper, Ametek or Diploma, not to mention the spin- offs, some of which remain in the portfolio today. The business remains on our Watchlist through our continuous coverage of the Life Sciences cluster.”
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