GAM Holding AG Takes $1.41 Million Position in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

GAM Holding AG purchased a new stake in shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) in the fourth quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The institutional investor purchased 4,020 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock, valued at approximately $1,414,000.

A number of other large investors have also recently modified their holdings of the business. State Street Corp boosted its position in shares of 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 acquiring an additional 471,792 shares during the last quarter. UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC boosted its position in shares of Accenture by 378.9% during the 3rd 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 last quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. boosted its position in shares of Accenture by 1.2% during the 3rd quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 4,823,754 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $1,705,100,000 after acquiring an additional 56,937 shares during the last quarter. Swedbank AB raised its holdings in shares of Accenture by 47.5% during the 4th 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% during the 3rd quarter. Stifel Financial Corp now owns 1,892,409 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $668,974,000 after buying an additional 28,491 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of equities analysts recently weighed in on ACN shares. UBS Group raised their price objective on Accenture from $450.00 to $455.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Friday, December 20th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised their price objective on Accenture from $370.00 to $396.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Monday, December 16th. StockNews.com raised Accenture from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a report on Monday, January 13th. Wolfe Research raised Accenture from a “peer perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $425.00 price objective on the stock in a report on Wednesday, January 8th. Finally, The Goldman Sachs Group raised Accenture from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and lifted their price target for the stock from $370.00 to $420.00 in a research note on Friday, December 6th. Eight investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and sixteen have given a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the company has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $387.22.

Accenture Trading Down 0.2 %

NYSE ACN opened at $387.12 on Wednesday. The company has a quick ratio of 1.47, a current ratio of 1.47 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17. Accenture plc has a twelve month low of $278.69 and a twelve month high of $398.35. The firm has a market capitalization of $242.26 billion, a PE ratio of 32.48, a P/E/G ratio of 3.44 and a beta of 1.24. The stock’s 50 day moving average is $366.33 and its 200 day moving average is $355.32.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last released its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, December 19th. The information technology services provider reported $3.59 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $3.43 by $0.16. Accenture had a return on equity of 26.91% and a net margin of 11.41%. The company had revenue of $17.69 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $17.15 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the company posted $3.27 earnings per share. The firm’s revenue was up 9.0% on a year-over-year basis. Research analysts forecast that Accenture plc will post 12.73 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Insider Activity

In related news, CAO Melissa A. Burgum sold 1,487 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, January 21st. The stock was sold at an average price of $354.54, for a total transaction of $527,200.98. Following the completion of the sale, the chief accounting officer now owns 9,247 shares in the company, valued at approximately $3,278,431.38. This represents a 13.85 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, insider Angela Beatty sold 375 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Monday, December 23rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $358.50, for a total value of $134,437.50. Following the sale, the insider now owns 5,149 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $1,845,916.50. This trade represents a 6.79 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 22,280 shares of company stock valued at $8,316,190 over the last ninety days. 0.02% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

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.