City Holding Co. Sells 1,109 Shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

City Holding Co. trimmed its holdings in shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 9.8% in the 4th quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The institutional investor owned 10,231 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after selling 1,109 shares during the period. City Holding Co.’s holdings in Accenture were worth $3,599,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Several other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently modified their holdings of ACN. Pacer Advisors Inc. raised its position in shares of Accenture by 5.5% during the 2nd quarter. Pacer Advisors Inc. now owns 51,835 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $15,727,000 after buying an additional 2,695 shares in the last quarter. Kayne Anderson Rudnick Investment Management LLC lifted its stake in Accenture by 0.3% during the second quarter. Kayne Anderson Rudnick Investment Management LLC now owns 212,025 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $64,331,000 after purchasing an additional 531 shares during the last quarter. Profund Advisors LLC boosted its holdings in shares of Accenture by 6.9% in the 2nd quarter. Profund Advisors LLC now owns 13,052 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $3,960,000 after purchasing an additional 840 shares in the last quarter. ProShare Advisors LLC increased its position in shares of Accenture by 7.1% during the 2nd quarter. ProShare Advisors LLC now owns 141,090 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $42,808,000 after purchasing an additional 9,351 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Frank Rimerman Advisors LLC lifted its position in Accenture by 16,888.5% in the 2nd quarter. Frank Rimerman Advisors LLC now owns 10,363 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $3,144,000 after buying an additional 10,302 shares during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

Accenture Price Performance

ACN stock opened at $352.33 on Monday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17, a quick ratio of 1.47 and a current ratio of 1.47. The firm has a market capitalization of $220.49 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 29.56, a PEG ratio of 3.11 and a beta of 1.24. The firm has a 50 day moving average price of $357.59 and a 200-day moving average price of $345.65. Accenture plc has a 52-week low of $278.69 and a 52-week high of $387.51.

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

Accenture announced that its Board of Directors has approved a share repurchase program on Thursday, September 26th that authorizes the company to repurchase $4.00 billion in shares. This repurchase authorization authorizes the information technology services provider to buy up to 1.8% of its stock through open market purchases. Stock repurchase programs are usually an indication that the company’s leadership believes its stock is undervalued.

Accenture Announces Dividend

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, February 14th. Investors of record on Thursday, January 16th will be given a dividend of $1.48 per share. This represents a $5.92 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.68%. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, January 16th. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 49.66%.

Insider Buying and Selling

In related news, CEO Ryoji Sekido sold 3,191 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction on Monday, November 4th. The stock was sold at an average price of $343.70, for a total value of $1,096,746.70. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 6 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $2,062.20. The trade was a 99.81 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available at this link. Also, insider Angela Beatty sold 673 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, October 22nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $372.18, for a total value of $250,477.14. Following the sale, the insider now owns 5,650 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $2,102,817. This represents a 10.64 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 17,125 shares of company stock worth $6,184,820 in the last three months. Insiders own 0.02% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several research analysts have commented on ACN shares. Wolfe Research raised shares of Accenture from a “peer perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $425.00 price target on the stock in a research note on Wednesday, January 8th. Royal Bank of Canada lifted their target price on shares of Accenture from $377.00 to $389.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research report on Friday, September 27th. The Goldman Sachs Group raised Accenture from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and raised their price objective for the company from $370.00 to $420.00 in a research note on Friday, December 6th. Piper Sandler boosted their target price on Accenture from $422.00 to $429.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Thursday, December 19th. Finally, Barclays raised their price target on Accenture from $350.00 to $415.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Monday, September 30th. Eight analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and sixteen have issued a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, Accenture has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $385.04.

About Accenture

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.