KLP Kapitalforvaltning AS Takes $83.90 Million Position in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

KLP Kapitalforvaltning AS bought a new position in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) during the 4th quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The fund bought 238,506 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock, valued at approximately $83,904,000.

Other institutional investors have also recently bought and sold shares of the company. Morse Asset Management Inc acquired a new stake in shares of Accenture during the 3rd quarter valued at about $25,000. FPC Investment Advisory Inc. raised its stake 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 buying an additional 28 shares during the last quarter. Kohmann Bosshard Financial Services LLC acquired a new position in Accenture during the fourth quarter valued at approximately $30,000. POM Investment Strategies LLC boosted its holdings in shares of Accenture by 64.2% in the fourth quarter. POM Investment Strategies LLC now owns 87 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $31,000 after buying an additional 34 shares during the period. Finally, Retirement Wealth Solutions LLC acquired a new position in shares of Accenture in the fourth quarter valued at approximately $34,000. Institutional investors own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several analysts have issued reports on the stock. Robert W. Baird raised shares of Accenture from a “neutral” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $390.00 price target on the stock in a research report on Monday, March 17th. UBS Group lowered their price target on shares of Accenture from $455.00 to $387.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research report on Friday. Stifel Nicolaus reduced their price objective on shares of Accenture from $390.00 to $380.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research note on Wednesday, February 26th. Morgan Stanley reduced their price target on shares of Accenture from $380.00 to $372.00 and set an “equal weight” rating on the stock in a research note on Monday, March 17th. Finally, Piper Sandler dropped their price objective on shares of Accenture from $396.00 to $364.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a report on Thursday. Eight investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, fifteen have given a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, Accenture presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $380.05.

Accenture Price Performance

NYSE:ACN opened at $305.17 on Friday. Accenture plc has a 52 week low of $278.69 and a 52 week high of $398.35. The company has a quick ratio of 1.47, a current ratio of 1.47 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17. The stock has a market capitalization of $190.97 billion, a PE ratio of 25.60, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.24. The stock’s 50-day moving average price is $359.16 and its 200-day moving average price is $357.13.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last announced its earnings results on Thursday, March 20th. The information technology services provider reported $2.82 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.81 by $0.01. The company had revenue of $16.70 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $16.64 billion. Accenture had a return on equity of 26.91% and a net margin of 11.41%. The firm’s quarterly revenue was up 5.7% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company earned $2.77 earnings per share. As a group, equities analysts expect that Accenture plc will post 12.73 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Accenture Announces Dividend

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, May 15th. Investors of record on Thursday, April 10th will be issued a dividend of $1.48 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, April 10th. This represents a $5.92 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.94%. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio is currently 49.66%.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other Accenture news, CAO Melissa A. Burgum sold 232 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, February 5th. The shares were sold at an average price of $394.46, for a total transaction of $91,514.72. Following the transaction, the chief accounting officer now owns 8,915 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $3,516,610.90. This trade represents a 2.54 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Also, insider Angela Beatty sold 375 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction on Monday, December 23rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $358.50, for a total transaction of $134,437.50. Following the sale, the insider now directly owns 5,149 shares in the company, valued at $1,845,916.50. This trade represents a 6.79 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 22,280 shares of company stock valued at $8,316,190 over the last ninety days. Corporate insiders own 0.02% of the company’s stock.

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.