Louisiana State Employees Retirement System Purchases New Position in ePlus inc. (NASDAQ:PLUS)

Louisiana State Employees Retirement System purchased a new stake in ePlus inc. (NASDAQ:PLUS) during the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund purchased 13,500 shares of the software maker’s stock, valued at approximately $1,078,000. Louisiana State Employees Retirement System owned approximately 0.05% of ePlus at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Other institutional investors have also bought and sold shares of the company. Ellsworth Advisors LLC boosted its stake in ePlus by 2.2% in the fourth quarter. Ellsworth Advisors LLC now owns 6,102 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $487,000 after purchasing an additional 134 shares in the last quarter. Rhumbline Advisers boosted its stake in ePlus by 0.4% in the third quarter. Rhumbline Advisers now owns 83,613 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $5,311,000 after purchasing an additional 326 shares in the last quarter. Swiss National Bank boosted its stake in ePlus by 0.7% in the third quarter. Swiss National Bank now owns 59,056 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $3,751,000 after purchasing an additional 400 shares in the last quarter. Exchange Traded Concepts LLC acquired a new position in ePlus in the third quarter worth $27,000. Finally, Mirae Asset Global Investments Co. Ltd. boosted its stake in ePlus by 3.9% in the fourth quarter. Mirae Asset Global Investments Co. Ltd. now owns 12,123 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $968,000 after purchasing an additional 454 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 93.80% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of research firms have commented on PLUS. Sidoti lowered ePlus from a “buy” rating to a “neutral” rating and set a $83.00 price objective on the stock. in a research note on Monday, January 8th. Stifel Nicolaus boosted their target price on ePlus from $70.00 to $80.00 and gave the stock a “hold” rating in a research report on Monday, April 15th.

ePlus Trading Up 3.3 %

PLUS stock opened at $80.11 on Wednesday. The company has a market cap of $2.16 billion, a P/E ratio of 16.90 and a beta of 1.18. ePlus inc. has a twelve month low of $41.71 and a twelve month high of $83.57. The company has a quick ratio of 1.59, a current ratio of 1.93 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.01. The business has a fifty day moving average of $78.49 and a 200-day moving average of $73.26.

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

Insider Transactions at ePlus

In related news, Director John E. Callies sold 1,308 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, February 20th. The stock was sold at an average price of $79.17, for a total value of $103,554.36. Following the completion of the sale, the director now owns 20,493 shares in the company, valued at $1,622,430.81. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. 2.41% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

ePlus Company 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.