Avantor downgraded to Hold from Buy at Stifel

Stifel downgraded Avantor (AVTR) to Hold from Buy with a price target of $14, down from $26. The company missed Q1 estimates and lowered the sales organic growth guidance by 200 basis points, but the totality of the results and earnings call were worse than that, the analyst tells investors in a research note. The firm says growth in bioprocess is lagging, tariff impacts do not appear fully baked-in, pricing improvement strategies that will be critical to managing the trade war are still being optimized, and Avantor appears to be losing share. Stifel believes there are too many other high-quality tools names trading at discounted multiples to favor this one right now.