Cornerstone Investment Partners LLC Acquires New Position in ePlus inc. (NASDAQ:PLUS)

Cornerstone Investment Partners LLC acquired a new stake in shares of ePlus inc. (NASDAQ:PLUS) in the 4th quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The institutional investor acquired 2,535 shares of the software maker’s stock, valued at approximately $202,000.

Other large investors also recently bought and sold shares of the company. Exchange Traded Concepts LLC acquired a new position in ePlus in the 3rd quarter valued at about $27,000. Advisors Asset Management Inc. acquired a new position in ePlus in the 3rd quarter valued at about $28,000. Operose Advisors LLC acquired a new position in ePlus in the 3rd quarter valued at about $33,000. Point72 Middle East FZE acquired a new position in ePlus in the 4th quarter valued at about $35,000. Finally, Point72 Hong Kong Ltd boosted its holdings in ePlus by 862.6% in the 2nd quarter. Point72 Hong Kong Ltd now owns 953 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $51,000 after purchasing an additional 854 shares during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 93.80% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several equities analysts have weighed in on the stock. Sidoti lowered shares of ePlus from a “buy” rating to a “neutral” rating and set a $83.00 target price on the stock. in a report on Monday, January 8th. Stifel Nicolaus boosted their target price on shares of ePlus from $70.00 to $80.00 and gave the company a “hold” rating in a report on Monday, April 15th.

Insider Transactions at ePlus

In other ePlus news, Director John E. Callies sold 1,308 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, February 20th. The shares were sold at an average price of $79.17, for a total transaction of $103,554.36. Following the sale, the director now directly owns 20,493 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,622,430.81. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available through this link. Company insiders own 2.41% of the company’s stock.

ePlus Stock Performance

Shares of PLUS stock opened at $75.37 on Friday. The firm’s 50 day moving average price is $78.34 and its 200-day moving average price is $72.92. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.01, a quick ratio of 1.59 and a current ratio of 1.93. ePlus inc. has a one year low of $41.71 and a one year high of $83.57. The firm has a market cap of $2.03 billion, a P/E ratio of 15.90 and a beta of 1.18.

ePlus (NASDAQ:PLUS) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, February 6th. The software maker reported $1.02 EPS for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $1.24 by ($0.22). ePlus had a return on equity of 15.26% and a net margin of 5.86%. The company had revenue of $509.06 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $598.25 million. As a group, equities research analysts predict that ePlus inc. will post 4.59 EPS for the current year.

ePlus Profile

ePlus inc., together with its subsidiaries, provides information technology (IT) solutions that enable organizations to optimize their IT environment and supply chain processes in the United States and internationally. It operates in two segments, Technology and Financing. The Technology segment offers hardware, perpetual and subscription software, maintenance, software assurance, and internally provided and outsourced services; and professional and managed services, including managed, professional, security solutions, cloud consulting and hosting, staff augmentation, storage-as-a-service, server and desktop support, and project management services.