Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) Position Boosted by Vest Financial LLC

Vest Financial LLC grew its holdings in shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 10.3% in the fourth quarter, according to its most recent filing with the SEC. The firm owned 92,147 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after acquiring an additional 8,576 shares during the quarter. Vest Financial LLC’s holdings in Accenture were worth $32,416,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also modified their holdings of ACN. State Street Corp increased its stake in Accenture by 1.8% during the 3rd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 27,400,836 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $9,685,648,000 after buying an additional 471,792 shares during the period. UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC increased its stake in shares of Accenture by 378.9% during the third quarter. UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC now owns 5,491,736 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $1,941,219,000 after acquiring an additional 4,345,039 shares during the period. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. lifted its position in Accenture by 1.2% in the third quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 4,823,754 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $1,705,100,000 after purchasing an additional 56,937 shares during the period. Swedbank AB boosted its stake in Accenture by 47.5% during the fourth quarter. Swedbank AB now owns 3,763,690 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $1,324,029,000 after buying an additional 1,212,011 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Stifel Financial Corp raised its holdings in shares of Accenture by 1.5% in the 3rd quarter. Stifel Financial Corp now owns 1,892,409 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $668,974,000 after purchasing an additional 28,491 shares in the last quarter. 75.14% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of equities analysts recently issued reports on ACN shares. StockNews.com upgraded Accenture from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a report on Monday, January 13th. BMO Capital Markets lifted their price target on Accenture from $390.00 to $425.00 and gave the stock a “market perform” rating in a research note on Friday, December 20th. Wolfe Research upgraded shares of Accenture from a “peer perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $425.00 target price for the company in a report on Wednesday, January 8th. Robert W. Baird restated a “neutral” rating and set a $370.00 price target on shares of Accenture in a report on Tuesday, December 3rd. Finally, UBS Group raised their price objective on shares of Accenture from $450.00 to $455.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, December 20th. Eight research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and sixteen have issued a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $387.22.

Accenture Price Performance

Shares of ACN opened at $386.04 on Friday. 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 cap of $241.58 billion, a PE ratio of 32.39, a PEG ratio of 3.43 and a beta of 1.24. Accenture plc has a twelve month low of $278.69 and a twelve month high of $398.35. The firm’s 50 day moving average price is $361.83 and its 200 day moving average price is $351.65.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last released its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, December 19th. The information technology services provider reported $3.59 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $3.43 by $0.16. The business had revenue of $17.69 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $17.15 billion. Accenture had a net margin of 11.41% and a return on equity of 26.91%. Accenture’s quarterly revenue was up 9.0% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business earned $3.27 EPS. As a group, research analysts expect that Accenture plc will post 12.69 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Accenture Announces Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, February 14th. Investors of record on Thursday, January 16th will be paid a $1.48 dividend. This represents a $5.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.53%. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, January 16th. Accenture’s payout ratio is 49.66%.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other Accenture news, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 2,497 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Friday, January 17th. The shares were sold at an average price of $354.48, for a total transaction of $885,136.56. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 28,866 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $10,232,419.68. The trade was a 7.96 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. Also, CAO Melissa A. Burgum sold 232 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, February 5th. The shares were sold at an average price of $394.46, for a total value of $91,514.72. Following the completion of the sale, the chief accounting officer now directly owns 8,915 shares in the company, valued at approximately $3,516,610.90. This represents a 2.54 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last ninety days, insiders sold 22,280 shares of company stock worth $8,316,190. 0.02% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Accenture Company 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.