Icon Plc $ICLR Holdings Reduced by Welch & Forbes LLC

Welch & Forbes LLC lessened its holdings in shares of Icon Plc (NASDAQ:ICLR) by 2.8% during the second quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund owned 18,740 shares of the medical research company’s stock after selling 540 shares during the period. Welch & Forbes LLC’s holdings in Icon were worth $2,726,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds have also added to or reduced their stakes in ICLR. Cantillon Capital Management LLC bought a new stake in Icon during the 2nd quarter valued at $67,663,000. First Pacific Advisors LP increased its holdings in shares of Icon by 76.3% during the second quarter. First Pacific Advisors LP now owns 964,120 shares of the medical research company’s stock valued at $140,231,000 after purchasing an additional 417,173 shares during the period. Coho Partners Ltd. bought a new stake in shares of Icon during the second quarter valued at about $33,649,000. Allspring Global Investments Holdings LLC lifted its holdings in Icon by 18.1% in the second quarter. Allspring Global Investments Holdings LLC now owns 1,060,499 shares of the medical research company’s stock worth $157,887,000 after purchasing an additional 162,853 shares during the period. Finally, Ninety One UK Ltd grew its position in Icon by 2.6% in the 2nd quarter. Ninety One UK Ltd now owns 2,993,652 shares of the medical research company’s stock valued at $435,427,000 after buying an additional 75,465 shares in the last quarter. 95.61% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of analysts have commented on ICLR shares. Barclays dropped their price target on shares of Icon from $190.00 to $185.00 and set an “equal weight” rating on the stock in a research report on Friday, October 24th. Jefferies Financial Group cut Icon from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating and dropped their target price for the stock from $220.00 to $175.00 in a report on Tuesday, September 9th. Zacks Research downgraded Icon from a “hold” rating to a “strong sell” rating in a research report on Monday, October 27th. Leerink Partners set a $220.00 price target on Icon in a research report on Thursday, October 23rd. Finally, Truist Financial upped their price objective on Icon from $187.00 to $234.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Friday, July 25th. Two investment analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, nine have given a Buy rating, eight have assigned a Hold rating and one has issued a Sell rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the company has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $207.14.

Icon Stock Performance

ICLR opened at $171.82 on Monday. The company has a quick ratio of 1.06, a current ratio of 1.06 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.31. The firm has a market cap of $13.88 billion, a PE ratio of 23.25, a P/E/G ratio of 3.04 and a beta of 1.23. The business has a fifty day simple moving average of $178.16 and a 200-day simple moving average of $159.59. Icon Plc has a fifty-two week low of $125.10 and a fifty-two week high of $231.89.

Icon (NASDAQ:ICLR) last announced its earnings results on Wednesday, October 22nd. The medical research company reported $3.31 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $3.28 by $0.03. Icon had a return on equity of 10.58% and a net margin of 7.40%.The business had revenue of $2.04 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.98 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the business posted $3.35 earnings per share. Icon’s revenue was up .6% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, equities analysts predict that Icon Plc will post 13.38 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Icon Company Profile

ICON Public Limited Company, a clinical research organization, provides outsourced development and commercialization services in Ireland, rest of Europe, the United States, and internationally. The company specializes in the strategic development, management, and analysis of programs that support various stages of the clinical development process from compound selection to Phase I-IV clinical studies.