JGP Wealth Management LLC Has $1 Million Stake in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

JGP Wealth Management LLC lifted its stake in shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 2.1% in the 4th quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The fund owned 2,848 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after acquiring an additional 58 shares during the period. JGP Wealth Management LLC’s holdings in Accenture were worth $1,002,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other hedge funds have also made changes to their positions in ACN. Schrum Private Wealth Management LLC grew its holdings in Accenture by 78.6% during the third quarter. Schrum Private Wealth Management LLC now owns 11,448 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $4,047,000 after purchasing an additional 5,038 shares during the last quarter. MQS Management LLC bought a new position in Accenture in the 3rd quarter worth $1,040,000. Concurrent Investment Advisors LLC boosted its holdings in Accenture by 70.6% during the third quarter. Concurrent Investment Advisors LLC now owns 35,591 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $12,581,000 after acquiring an additional 14,724 shares during the period. M&G PLC grew its position in shares of Accenture by 34.1% in the third quarter. M&G PLC now owns 292,808 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $103,361,000 after purchasing an additional 74,438 shares during the last quarter. Finally, BRITISH COLUMBIA INVESTMENT MANAGEMENT Corp lifted its position in shares of Accenture by 18.7% during the 2nd quarter. BRITISH COLUMBIA INVESTMENT MANAGEMENT Corp now owns 172,199 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $52,247,000 after purchasing an additional 27,168 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

Insider Activity at Accenture

In related news, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 9,000 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction dated Monday, October 21st. The stock was sold at an average price of $376.16, for a total value of $3,385,440.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 20,324 shares in the company, valued at $7,645,075.84. This trade represents a 30.69 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, insider Angela Beatty sold 673 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, October 22nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $372.18, for a total transaction of $250,477.14. Following the transaction, the insider now owns 5,650 shares in the company, valued at approximately $2,102,817. The trade was a 10.64 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 26,125 shares of company stock valued at $9,570,260 over the last quarter. Corporate insiders own 0.02% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

ACN has been the topic of several recent analyst reports. Piper Sandler Companies reaffirmed a “neutral” rating and issued a $329.00 price target on shares of Accenture in a research report on Friday, September 20th. TD Cowen upgraded shares of Accenture from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and upped their target price for the company from $321.00 to $400.00 in a research note on Monday, September 30th. Barclays boosted their price objective on shares of Accenture from $350.00 to $415.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Monday, September 30th. Royal Bank of Canada increased their target price on shares of Accenture from $377.00 to $389.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Friday, September 27th. Finally, Wolfe Research raised Accenture from a “peer perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $425.00 price target for the company in a report on Wednesday, January 8th. Eight analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and sixteen have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $385.04.

Accenture Stock Up 0.3 %

NYSE ACN opened at $350.92 on Friday. The stock’s 50 day simple moving average is $357.85 and its 200 day simple moving average is $344.97. Accenture plc has a one year low of $278.69 and a one year high of $387.51. The firm has a market cap of $219.60 billion, a PE ratio of 29.44, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.11 and a beta of 1.24. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17, a current ratio of 1.47 and a quick ratio of 1.47.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last announced its earnings results on Thursday, December 19th. The information technology services provider reported $3.59 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.43 by $0.16. The company had revenue of $17.69 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $17.15 billion. Accenture had a return on equity of 26.91% and a net margin of 11.41%. The firm’s quarterly revenue was up 9.0% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period last year, the company posted $3.27 earnings per share. As a group, sell-side analysts forecast that Accenture plc will post 12.69 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Accenture declared that its Board of Directors has authorized a stock buyback plan on Thursday, September 26th that allows the company to repurchase $4.00 billion in outstanding shares. This repurchase authorization allows the information technology services provider to purchase up to 1.8% of its stock through open market purchases. Stock repurchase plans are typically a sign that the company’s board of directors believes its stock is undervalued.

Accenture Dividend Announcement

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, February 14th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, January 16th will be given a dividend of $1.48 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, January 16th. This represents a $5.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.69%. Accenture’s payout ratio is 49.66%.

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.