ICW Investment Advisors LLC Buys 668 Shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

ICW Investment Advisors LLC increased its stake in shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 14.2% during the 4th quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The fund owned 5,369 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after purchasing an additional 668 shares during the quarter. ICW Investment Advisors LLC’s holdings in Accenture were worth $1,889,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Several other hedge funds have also modified their holdings of the stock. Vanguard Group Inc. grew its stake in shares of Accenture by 0.7% during the fourth quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 60,394,657 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $21,246,236,000 after purchasing an additional 392,183 shares during the last quarter. State Street Corp grew its stake in shares of Accenture by 1.8% during the third 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 purchasing an additional 471,792 shares during the last quarter. UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC grew 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 purchasing an additional 4,345,039 shares during the last quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. lifted its holdings in Accenture by 2.9% in the fourth quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 4,964,480 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $1,746,455,000 after buying an additional 140,726 shares during the period. Finally, Amundi lifted its holdings in Accenture by 27.9% in the fourth quarter. Amundi now owns 3,790,069 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $1,353,909,000 after buying an additional 826,038 shares during the period. 75.14% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Insider Transactions at Accenture

In other news, CAO Melissa A. Burgum sold 232 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated 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 directly owns 8,915 shares in the company, valued at $3,516,610.90. The trade was a 2.54 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link. Also, insider Angela Beatty sold 961 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, January 17th. The shares were sold at an average price of $354.47, for a total transaction of $340,645.67. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider now owns 5,484 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,943,913.48. This trade represents a 14.91 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 21,905 shares of company stock worth $8,181,753 in the last ninety days. Insiders own 0.02% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several equities analysts recently weighed in on ACN shares. Royal Bank of Canada cut their price objective on shares of Accenture from $399.00 to $392.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a report on Friday. UBS Group cut their price objective on shares of Accenture from $455.00 to $387.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a report on Friday. The Goldman Sachs Group upgraded shares of Accenture from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and increased their price objective for the company from $370.00 to $420.00 in a report on Friday, December 6th. Piper Sandler cut their price objective on shares of Accenture from $396.00 to $364.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a report on Thursday. Finally, Jefferies Financial Group reduced their price target on shares of Accenture from $385.00 to $355.00 and set a “hold” rating on the stock in a research report on Tuesday, January 21st. 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 company. According to data from MarketBeat, Accenture currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $380.05.

Accenture Stock Up 1.4 %

Shares of ACN stock opened at $305.17 on Monday. The company has a current ratio of 1.47, a quick ratio of 1.47 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17. Accenture plc has a 1 year low of $278.69 and a 1 year high of $398.35. The firm’s fifty day moving average price is $359.16 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $357.33. The firm has a market capitalization of $190.97 billion, a P/E ratio of 25.60, a PEG ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.24.

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

Accenture Announces Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, May 15th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, April 10th will be paid 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 dividend yield of 1.94%. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio is presently 49.66%.

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.