S.A. Mason LLC Trims Stock Holdings in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

S.A. Mason LLC cut its stake in shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 2.5% in the fourth quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The fund owned 4,400 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after selling 115 shares during the period. Accenture makes up approximately 1.0% of S.A. Mason LLC’s investment portfolio, making the stock its 21st biggest position. S.A. Mason LLC’s holdings in Accenture were worth $1,544,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds have also made changes to their positions in the stock. Norges Bank purchased a new stake in Accenture in the fourth quarter valued at approximately $1,850,765,000. Moneta Group Investment Advisors LLC raised its holdings in shares of Accenture by 101,214.0% in the 4th quarter. Moneta Group Investment Advisors LLC now owns 4,040,402 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $1,078,141,000 after buying an additional 4,036,414 shares during the period. Morgan Stanley lifted its stake in Accenture by 14.9% during the 4th quarter. Morgan Stanley now owns 16,642,841 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $4,440,976,000 after acquiring an additional 2,163,582 shares in the last quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP grew its position in Accenture by 7.0% in the 3rd quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP now owns 11,034,666 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $3,388,856,000 after acquiring an additional 720,647 shares in the last quarter. Finally, State Street Corp boosted its stake in shares of Accenture by 2.7% in the first quarter. State Street Corp now owns 26,453,884 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $7,560,765,000 after purchasing an additional 704,657 shares during the period. 75.14% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

ACN has been the subject of a number of recent research reports. Morgan Stanley lifted their target price on Accenture from $400.00 to $417.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Monday, March 18th. BMO Capital Markets lowered their price objective on Accenture from $385.00 to $375.00 and set a “market perform” rating for the company in a research report on Friday, March 22nd. Redburn Atlantic upped their target price on shares of Accenture from $410.00 to $445.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Tuesday, March 19th. Piper Sandler boosted their price target on shares of Accenture from $335.00 to $394.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a report on Monday, March 18th. Finally, Bank of America raised their target price on Accenture from $379.00 to $419.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Thursday, March 7th. Eight investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and fourteen have given a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $387.00.

Accenture Trading Up 1.4 %

NYSE ACN opened at $340.96 on Thursday. The stock has a market capitalization of $213.89 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 30.91, a PEG ratio of 3.16 and a beta of 1.20. The business’s 50 day moving average is $369.38 and its two-hundred day moving average is $340.37. Accenture plc has a 12-month low of $261.68 and a 12-month high of $387.51.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last released its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, March 21st. The information technology services provider reported $2.77 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $2.66 by $0.11. The firm had revenue of $15.80 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $15.85 billion. Accenture had a return on equity of 28.30% and a net margin of 10.89%. Accenture’s revenue was down .1% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business posted $2.69 earnings per share. Equities analysts forecast that Accenture plc will post 12.1 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Accenture Announces Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, May 15th. Investors of record on Thursday, April 11th will be issued a dividend of $1.29 per share. This represents a $5.16 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.51%. The ex-dividend date is Wednesday, April 10th. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio is currently 46.78%.

Insider Buying and Selling at Accenture

In other news, COO John F. Walsh sold 8,000 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, March 25th. The stock was sold at an average price of $332.13, for a total transaction of $2,657,040.00. Following the sale, the chief operating officer now owns 17,877 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $5,937,488.01. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this hyperlink. In other news, COO John F. Walsh sold 8,000 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction on Monday, March 25th. The stock was sold at an average price of $332.13, for a total transaction of $2,657,040.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief operating officer now owns 17,877 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $5,937,488.01. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link. Also, CFO Kathleen R. Mcclure sold 2,070 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Monday, February 5th. The shares were sold at an average price of $370.32, for a total transaction of $766,562.40. Following the completion of the sale, the chief financial officer now directly owns 47,110 shares in the company, valued at $17,445,775.20. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last three months, insiders sold 31,000 shares of company stock valued at $11,146,998. Corporate insiders own 0.07% of the company’s stock.

Accenture Profile

Accenture plc, a professional services company, provides strategy and consulting, industry X, song, and technology and operation services worldwide. The company offers application services, including agile transformation, DevOps, application modernization, enterprise architecture, software and quality engineering, data management; intelligent automation comprising robotic process automation, natural language processing, and virtual agents; and application management services, as well as software engineering services; strategy and consulting services; data and analytics strategy, data discovery and augmentation, data management and beyond, data democratization, and industrialized solutions comprising turnkey analytics and artificial intelligence (AI) solutions; metaverse; and sustainability services.