William Blair Investment Management LLC Buys New Stake in Twist Bioscience Corporation $TWST

William Blair Investment Management LLC bought a new stake in shares of Twist Bioscience Corporation (NASDAQ:TWST) during the second quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the SEC. The institutional investor bought 2,174,594 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $223,722,000. Twist Bioscience comprises about 0.7% of William Blair Investment Management LLC’s holdings, making the stock its 29th biggest position. William Blair Investment Management LLC owned about 3.47% of Twist Bioscience at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Several other hedge funds also recently bought and sold shares of TWST. ARK Investment Management LLC raised its holdings in shares of Twist Bioscience by 12.4% in the fourth quarter. ARK Investment Management LLC now owns 7,559,495 shares of the company’s stock worth $239,787,000 after acquiring an additional 832,687 shares during the last quarter. BlackRock Inc. purchased a new stake in shares of Twist Bioscience in the second quarter valued at $600,191,000. EdgePoint Investment Group Inc. boosted its stake in shares of Twist Bioscience by 31.7% during the fourth quarter. EdgePoint Investment Group Inc. now owns 5,377,991 shares of the company’s stock valued at $170,590,000 after acquiring an additional 1,295,672 shares during the last quarter. State Street Corp boosted its stake in shares of Twist Bioscience by 17.4% during the fourth quarter. State Street Corp now owns 3,627,818 shares of the company’s stock valued at $115,074,000 after acquiring an additional 538,755 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Millennium Management LLC increased its position in Twist Bioscience by 151.5% during the 3rd quarter. Millennium Management LLC now owns 1,793,850 shares of the company’s stock worth $50,479,000 after purchasing an additional 1,080,722 shares in the last quarter.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several brokerages recently weighed in on TWST. TD Cowen reissued a “buy” rating on shares of Twist Bioscience in a research note on Monday, August 3rd. Leerink Partners set a $110.00 price target on shares of Twist Bioscience in a research note on Thursday, July 16th. Guggenheim lifted their price target on shares of Twist Bioscience from $60.00 to $107.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Monday, June 29th. Barclays boosted their price objective on shares of Twist Bioscience from $65.00 to $95.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Wednesday, June 24th. Finally, Piper Sandler upped their price objective on shares of Twist Bioscience from $85.00 to $115.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Wednesday, August 5th. Eight analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, one has assigned a Hold rating and one has given a Sell rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $98.30.

Twist Bioscience Price Performance

TWST opened at $145.59 on Friday. Twist Bioscience Corporation has a 1 year low of $23.30 and a 1 year high of $145.93. The company’s 50 day simple moving average is $100.69 and its 200 day simple moving average is $70.33. The stock has a market capitalization of $9.13 billion, a PE ratio of -65.58 and a beta of 2.14. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.03, a quick ratio of 2.38 and a current ratio of 2.67.

Twist Bioscience (NASDAQ:TWST) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Monday, August 3rd. The company reported ($0.56) EPS for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of ($0.51) by ($0.05). The company had revenue of $118.38 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $114.55 million. Twist Bioscience had a negative return on equity of 28.64% and a negative net margin of 31.66%.The business’s revenue for the quarter was up 23.2% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period last year, the company posted $0.33 EPS. As a group, sell-side analysts expect that Twist Bioscience Corporation will post -2.12 EPS for the current year.

Insider Activity at Twist Bioscience

In other news, CEO Emily M. Leproust sold 113,318 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Monday, August 10th. The shares were sold at an average price of $125.16, for a total transaction of $14,182,880.88. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer directly owned 818,938 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $102,498,280.08. The trade was a 12.16% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, insider Dennis Cho sold 14,205 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Wednesday, June 24th. The stock was sold at an average price of $89.75, for a total value of $1,274,898.75. Following the sale, the insider owned 105,141 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $9,436,404.75. The trade was a 11.90% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Insiders sold 151,529 shares of company stock valued at $17,708,772 over the last quarter. 3.08% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Twist Bioscience Profile

Twist Bioscience Corporation is a synthetic biology company specializing in the development and commercialization of DNA-based products and solutions. Founded in 2013 and headquartered in South San Francisco, California, the company has pioneered a proprietary silicon-based DNA synthesis platform designed for high-throughput production of synthetic genes and oligonucleotides. Twist leverages semiconductor manufacturing techniques to enable precise, scalable synthesis of DNA at speeds and volumes unattainable with traditional methods.

At the core of Twist’s offering is its proprietary platform that automates the synthesis of custom DNA fragments, gene libraries, and long oligonucleotides.