Douglass Winthrop Advisors LLC Raises Holdings in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Douglass Winthrop Advisors LLC raised its stake in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 2.9% in the 4th quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the SEC. The fund owned 269,782 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after purchasing an additional 7,506 shares during the quarter. Accenture accounts for 1.8% of Douglass Winthrop Advisors LLC’s portfolio, making the stock its 23rd biggest position. Douglass Winthrop Advisors LLC’s holdings in Accenture were worth $94,907,000 as of its most recent filing with the SEC.

A number of other institutional investors have also recently made changes to their positions in ACN. Morse Asset Management Inc purchased a new stake in Accenture during the 3rd quarter valued at $25,000. FPC Investment Advisory Inc. boosted its holdings in shares of Accenture by 62.2% during the fourth quarter. FPC Investment Advisory Inc. now owns 73 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $28,000 after purchasing an additional 28 shares during the period. Kohmann Bosshard Financial Services LLC bought a new stake in shares of Accenture in the fourth quarter worth about $30,000. POM Investment Strategies LLC increased its holdings in Accenture by 64.2% during the 4th quarter. POM Investment Strategies LLC now owns 87 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $31,000 after purchasing an additional 34 shares during the period. Finally, Retirement Wealth Solutions LLC purchased a new stake in Accenture in the 4th quarter worth approximately $34,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

ACN has been the topic of several research analyst reports. UBS Group boosted their target price on Accenture from $450.00 to $455.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, December 20th. Robert W. Baird upgraded shares of Accenture from a “neutral” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $390.00 price objective for the company in a report on Monday. Baird R W raised shares of Accenture from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Monday. Wolfe Research raised shares of Accenture from a “peer perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $425.00 price target for the company in a research note on Wednesday, January 8th. Finally, Morgan Stanley cut their price objective on Accenture from $380.00 to $372.00 and set an “equal weight” rating on the stock in a research report on Monday. Eight equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, fifteen have given a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $384.45.

Insider Activity

In other news, CAO Melissa A. Burgum sold 1,487 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, January 21st. The stock was sold at an average price of $354.54, for a total value of $527,200.98. Following the transaction, the chief accounting officer now directly owns 9,247 shares in the company, valued at $3,278,431.38. This trade represents a 13.85 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at this link. 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 in the last 90 days. 0.02% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Accenture Trading Down 7.3 %

Shares of NYSE ACN opened at $300.86 on Friday. The firm’s 50 day moving average price is $360.05 and its 200-day moving average price is $357.39. Accenture plc has a 52-week low of $278.69 and a 52-week high of $398.35. 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 company has a market cap of $188.28 billion, a PE ratio of 25.24, a P/E/G ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.24.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last issued its earnings results on Thursday, March 20th. The information technology services provider reported $2.82 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.81 by $0.01. Accenture had a return on equity of 26.91% and a net margin of 11.41%. The business had revenue of $16.70 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $16.64 billion. During the same period last year, the business posted $2.77 EPS. The company’s revenue was up 5.7% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, equities research analysts expect that Accenture plc will post 12.73 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Accenture Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, May 15th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, April 10th will be given a $1.48 dividend. This represents a $5.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.97%. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) 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.