First Foundation Advisors Reduces Stock Position in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

First Foundation Advisors lessened its holdings in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 3.0% during the 4th quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The firm owned 38,336 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after selling 1,196 shares during the period. First Foundation Advisors’ holdings in Accenture were worth $13,486,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other institutional investors have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Treasurer of the State of North Carolina lifted its stake in Accenture by 0.5% in the fourth quarter. Treasurer of the State of North Carolina now owns 283,477 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $99,724,000 after acquiring an additional 1,280 shares during the last quarter. Legacy Financial Advisors Inc. raised its stake in shares of Accenture by 3.2% during the fourth quarter. Legacy Financial Advisors Inc. now owns 3,983 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $1,401,000 after purchasing an additional 124 shares during the last quarter. Redwood Park Advisors LLC acquired a new position in Accenture during the 4th quarter worth approximately $64,000. Scotia Capital Inc. grew its position in Accenture by 10.1% during the fourth quarter. Scotia Capital Inc. now owns 309,970 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $109,050,000 after buying an additional 28,379 shares during the period. Finally, Phoenix Financial Ltd. grew its position in shares of Accenture by 19.7% in the fourth quarter. Phoenix Financial Ltd. now owns 13,361 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $4,701,000 after purchasing an additional 2,198 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of equities research analysts have recently commented on the company. StockNews.com downgraded Accenture from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Tuesday, March 11th. Guggenheim decreased their target price on shares of Accenture from $400.00 to $395.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research report on Friday, March 21st. Piper Sandler dropped their price target on shares of Accenture from $396.00 to $364.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a research report on Thursday, March 20th. Baird R W upgraded shares of Accenture from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Monday, March 17th. Finally, Morgan Stanley dropped their price objective on Accenture from $380.00 to $372.00 and set an “equal weight” rating for the company in a report on Monday, March 17th. Eight investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, fifteen have given a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $378.23.

Accenture Price Performance

Shares of ACN stock opened at $293.48 on Thursday. The stock has a 50-day moving average price of $340.78 and a 200 day moving average price of $352.78. Accenture plc has a 12 month low of $275.01 and a 12 month high of $398.35. The firm has a market cap of $183.82 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 24.62, a PEG ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.32. 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 (NYSE:ACN) last released its quarterly earnings data 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. The company had revenue of $16.70 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $16.64 billion. Accenture had a return on equity of 26.91% and a net margin of 11.41%. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 5.7% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm posted $2.77 EPS. Research analysts expect that Accenture plc will post 12.73 EPS for the current year.

Accenture Dividend Announcement

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, May 15th. Investors of record on Thursday, April 10th will be given a dividend of $1.48 per share. This represents a $5.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 2.02%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, April 10th. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio is currently 48.89%.

Insider Buying and Selling at Accenture

In other news, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 2,497 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Friday, January 17th. The shares were sold at an average price of $354.48, for a total value of $885,136.56. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 28,866 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $10,232,419.68. This represents a 7.96 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available through the SEC website. Also, CAO Melissa A. Burgum sold 1,487 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction on Tuesday, January 21st. The shares were 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 of the company’s stock, valued at $3,278,431.38. This represents a 13.85 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 21,905 shares of company stock valued at $8,181,753 in the last three months. 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.