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WAT $368.5

WAT target price
368.50
0
376
Waters Corporation
Type
Public
Traded as NYSE: WAT
S&P 500 Component
Industry Life Sciences
Founded 1958
Headquarters Milford, Massachusetts, United States
Revenue IncreaseUS$ 2 billion (2015)
Number of employees
~5,000
Website www.waters.com

Waters Corporation is a publicly traded Analytical Laboratory instrument and software company headquartered in Milford, Massachusetts. The company employs more than 5,000 people, with manufacturing facilities located in Milford, Taunton, Massachusetts; Wexford, Ireland; Wilmslow, around 13 miles south of Manchester, England; and contract manufacturing in Singapore.

Waters markets to the laboratory-dependent organization in these market areas: liquid chromatography, mass spectrometry, supercritical fluid chromatography, laboratory informatics, rheometry and microcalorimetry.

The business was started by James (Jim) Logan Waters as Waters Associates in an office in the basement of a police station in Framingham, Massachusetts, in 1958.

Waters enrolled in the V-12 Navy College Training Program, an officer training program, and graduated from Columbia University as an ensign with a B.S. degree in Physics in 1946. After stints as a university math teacher, Naval officer, project engineer, and entrepreneur, Waters formed Waters Associates in 1958. The fledgling firm’s first offices were in the rented basement of the Framingham, Mass. police station. During these years, Waters Associates was what is now referred to as a research boutique. Companies would contract Waters and his five employees to build one-of-a-kind instruments for various purposes. Early products included a boiler feedwater flame photometer, a balloon hydrometer, a nerve gas detector, a lab refractometer and process control refractometers. While from its start the company had been self-financed, with proceeds from an earlier business sale, Waters opened Waters Associates to external ownership in 1962.

The company’s first major break came when Dow Chemical bought one of Waters’ first gel permeation chromatography instruments, Dow Chemical made an additional investment of $400,000. By 1979, Dow Chemical had attained nearly 25 percent ownership in Waters.

In 1967, the ALC 100, the first Waters LC system, was brought to market. According to Leslie S. Ettre in a review about Jim Waters, the LC system was formally introduced at the 1968 Pittsburgh Conference. It was a benchtop system equipped with a Milton Roy pump, syringe injection, and two detectors: a Waters differential refractometer and a UV detector from the Laboratory Data Control (LDC) Co.

In 1969, Dimitri D’Arbeloff, then president of Millipore Corporation, joined the corporation's board of directors. Millipore’s venture capital subsidiary made a $600,000 equity investment in Waters.

Waters next big break came in 1972 when Dr. Helmut Hamberger, chief post-doc for Nobel Laureate Dr. Robert Woodward of Harvard University, sought Jim Waters’ help to the first synthesis of vitamin B12. Dr. Hamberger wanted to purify the positional isomers, which were needed to give him the right compound for the final stages of the synthesis. Working with Dr. Hamberger, the pair took two days to develop a separation, five more days to obtain larger columns to scale up the separation, and three more days to prep his material. In the end, the two had isolated and purified 200 mg of the precursor compound.

In 1972, Waters Associates appointed Frank Zenie president. A year later, headquarters moved from Framingham to a semi-rural 26-acre (110,000 m) site in Milford, Massachusetts. Waters became chairman, and continued in that role until the company merged with Millipore in 1980, and was rechristened the Waters Chromatograph Division.

The sought-for synergies between the two companies never materialized, however. And, in 1993, Waters returned to independence under the leadership of Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer Douglas A. Berthiaume. In 1997 Waters entered mass spectrometry market with acquisition of Micromass for $176 million. On 11 June 2012, Waters India celebrated its silver jubilee anniversary in India.

Waters’ main product brands include: ACQUITY UPLC systems, ACQUITY UPC Systems, Xevo mass spectrometry systems, Synapt MS systems, Synapt HDMS systems, XTerra HPLC columns, XBridge columns, ACQUITY UPLC columns, Alliance HPLC systems, Empower chromatography and MassLynx mass spectrometry software, Oasis sample preparation products, NuGenesis lab management system (LMS).

A majority of the company's revenue is derived from the life science market, a market comprising drug discovery, drug development, quality control, and the emerging sciences of genomics, proteomics and biopharmaceuticals. Waters products are also sold into the food and beverage, environmental, fine chemical, personal care product, university, government, semiconductor, clinical and plastics markets sectors.

Q reports

Period Date Adjusted Actuals EPS GAAP EPS
Q3 2022 2022-10-31 Future report Set alerts
Q2 2022 2022-08-02 2.75 2.75
Q1 2022 2022-05-03 2.80 2.80
Q4 2021 2022-02-01 3.67 3.67
Q3 2021 2021-11-02 2.66 2.66
Q2 2021 2021-08-03 2.60 2.60
Q1 2021 2021-05-05 2.29 2.29
Q4 2020 2021-02-02 3.65 3.65
Q3 2020 2020-10-27 2.16 2.16
Q2 2020 2020-07-28 2.10 2.10

Ratings

2016-04-27 Boost Price Target Mizuho Neutral $125.00 to $130.00
2016-04-26 Reiterated Rating Leerink Swann Hold
2016-04-26 Reiterated Rating Morgan Stanley Sell
2016-04-05 Downgrade Bank of America Buy to Neutral $137.00
2016-04-05 Downgrade Bank of America Corp. Buy to Neutral $137.00
2016-03-23 Boost Price Target Goldman Sachs $140.00
2016-03-23 Boost Price Target Goldman Sachs Group Inc. $140.00
2016-03-01 Initiated Coverage Barclays Equal Weight $125.00
2016-03-01 Initiated Coverage Barclays PLC Equal Weight $125.00
2016-01-27 Reiterated Rating William Blair Market Perform
2016-01-27 Lower Price Target Goldman Sachs Neutral $135.00 to $134.00
2016-01-27 Lower Price Target Deutsche Bank Hold $137.00 to $130.00
2016-01-27 Reiterated Rating Cantor Fitzgerald Buy $163.00
2016-01-27 Lower Price Target Deutsche Bank AG Hold $137.00 to $130.00
2016-01-07 Boost Price Target Cowen and Company $140.00
2016-01-06 Initiated Coverage Deutsche Bank Hold $137.00
2016-01-06 Initiated Coverage Avondale Partners Outperform $155.00
2015-12-08 Boost Price Target Goldman Sachs $128.00 to $140.00
2015-12-02 Upgrade Cantor Fitzgerald Buy $163.00
2015-11-24 Lower Price Target Goldman Sachs Neutral $130.00 to $128.00
2015-10-28 Reiterated Rating Leerink Swann Hold $137.00
2015-10-15 Lower Price Target Citigroup Inc. Neutral $135.00 to $130.00
2015-10-02 Lower Price Target Cowen and Company Market Perform $137.00 to $123.00
2015-09-10 Upgrade Bank of America Neutral to Buy $140.00
2015-08-27 Initiated Coverage Maxim Group Buy $163.00
2015-08-26 Initiated Coverage Cantor Fitzgerald Buy $163.00
2015-07-29 Upgrade Wells Fargo & Co. Market Perform to Outperform
2015-07-29 Boost Price Target Mizuho Neutral $120.00 to $125.00
2015-07-29 Upgrade Wells Fargo Market Perform to Outperform
2015-06-26 Reiterated Rating William Blair Market Perform
2015-04-29 Boost Price Target Cantor Fitzgerald Buy $133.00 to $140.00
2015-04-29 Boost Price Target Maxim Group Buy $145.00 to $158.00
2015-03-12 Reiterated Rating Cantor Fitzgerald Buy $133.00
2015-01-27 Reiterated Rating William Blair Hold
2015-01-27 Boost Price Target Citigroup Inc. Neutral $112.00 to $117.00
2014-12-16 Initiated Coverage KeyBanc Hold
2014-12-16 Initiated Coverage KeyCorp Hold
2014-09-08 Initiated Coverage Morgan Stanley Underweight $92.00
2014-08-11 Initiated Coverage Stifel Nicolaus Hold
2014-07-23 Boost Price Target Jefferies Group Hold $98.00 to $105.00
2014-07-17 Initiated Coverage Citigroup Inc. Neutral $112.00
2014-04-30 Lower Price Target Macquarie Outperform $124.00 to $117.00
2014-04-30 Lower Price Target Cowen and Company $115.00 to $105.00
2014-04-30 Reiterated Rating Leerink Swann Market Perform $120.00 to $106.00
2014-04-11 Boost Price Target Goldman Sachs $106.00 to $108.00
2014-01-29 Boost Price Target Barclays Overweight $112.00 to $118.00
2014-01-29 Boost Price Target Maxim Group Buy $129.00 to $135.00
2014-01-28 Reiterated ISI Group Neutral $109.50 to $115.50
2014-01-28 Boost Price Target Evercore ISI Neutral $109.50 to $115.50
2014-01-28 Reiterated Rating Janney Montgomery Scott Fair Value $110.00 to $125.00
2013-11-26 Downgrade Goldman Sachs Buy to Neutral
2013-10-24 Downgrade Bank of America Buy to Neutral
2013-10-23 Boost Price Target Jefferies Group Hold $90.00 to $94.00
2013-10-23 Downgrade Bank of America Buy to Neutral $113.00 to $105.00
2013-10-22 Reiterated Rating Maxim Group Buy
2013-10-22 Reiterated Rating Goldman Sachs Buy $126.00
2013-10-22 Lower Price Target Mizuho Neutral $110.00 to $105.00
2013-10-14 Downgrade Mizuho Buy to Neutral $110.00
2013-09-27 Boost Price Target Goldman Sachs Buy $122.00 to $126.00
2013-09-26 Initiated Coverage Maxim Group Buy $129.00
2013-07-19 Initiated William Blair Mkt Perform
2013-04-23 Reiterated Mizuho Buy $100 to $105
2013-01-28 Upgrade WallachBeth Hold to Buy $87 to $103
2013-01-23 Reiterated Cantor Fitzgerald Buy $95 to $100
2013-01-22 Reiterated ISI Group Neutral $94 to $94.50
2016-04-27 Boost Price Target Mizuho Neutral $125.00 to $130.00
2016-04-26 Reiterated Rating Leerink Swann Hold
2016-04-26 Reiterated Rating Morgan Stanley Sell
2016-04-05 Downgrade Bank of America Buy to Neutral $137.00
2016-04-05 Downgrade Bank of America Corp. Buy to Neutral $137.00

There is presents forecasts of rating agencies and recommendations for investors about this ticker

Major Shareholders

Name Relationship Total Shares Holding stocks