Mariner LLC Purchases 256 Shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Mariner LLC increased its position in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 0.1% in the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the SEC. The fund owned 264,481 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after acquiring an additional 256 shares during the quarter. Mariner LLC’s holdings in Accenture were worth $93,043,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also added to or reduced their stakes in ACN. SageView Advisory Group LLC boosted its holdings in shares of Accenture by 47.3% in the fourth quarter. SageView Advisory Group LLC now owns 2,429 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $855,000 after acquiring an additional 780 shares during the period. Savvy Advisors Inc. boosted its stake in Accenture by 13.2% in the 4th quarter. Savvy Advisors Inc. now owns 3,119 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $1,097,000 after purchasing an additional 364 shares during the period. Synovus Financial Corp increased its position in shares of Accenture by 8.2% during the fourth quarter. Synovus Financial Corp now owns 28,085 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $9,881,000 after buying an additional 2,123 shares during the period. Bragg Financial Advisors Inc lifted its holdings in shares of Accenture by 2.3% in the fourth quarter. Bragg Financial Advisors Inc now owns 52,192 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $18,361,000 after buying an additional 1,174 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Cooper Creek Partners Management LLC bought a new position in shares of Accenture in the fourth quarter valued at approximately $31,661,000. 75.14% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Accenture Stock Up 2.0 %

Shares of Accenture stock opened at $289.93 on Tuesday. The company’s 50 day moving average price is $334.44 and its 200-day moving average price is $351.59. Accenture plc has a 52-week low of $275.01 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 stock has a market capitalization of $181.59 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 24.32, a P/E/G ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.32.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last issued 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. Accenture had a net margin of 11.41% and a return on equity of 26.91%. The firm had revenue of $16.70 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $16.64 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the firm posted $2.77 earnings per share. The company’s quarterly revenue was up 5.7% compared to the same quarter last year. Equities research analysts forecast that Accenture plc will post 12.73 EPS for the current year.

Accenture Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently announced 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 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 2.04%. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio is presently 48.89%.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

ACN has been the topic of several recent analyst reports. Baird R W upgraded shares of Accenture from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Monday, March 17th. Mizuho dropped their price objective on Accenture from $428.00 to $398.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research note on Wednesday, March 19th. StockNews.com cut Accenture from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Tuesday, March 11th. Guggenheim cut their price objective on Accenture from $400.00 to $395.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a report on Friday, March 21st. Finally, Robert W. Baird raised shares of Accenture from a “neutral” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $390.00 target price on the stock in a research note on Monday, March 17th. Eight investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, fifteen have assigned a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Accenture currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $378.23.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other Accenture news, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 8,793 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, February 5th. The stock was sold at an average price of $394.47, for a total transaction of $3,468,574.71. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 11,858 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $4,677,625.26. The trade was a 42.58 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this link. Also, insider Angela Beatty sold 961 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, January 17th. The stock was sold at an average price of $354.47, for a total value of $340,645.67. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider now directly owns 5,484 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $1,943,913.48. This represents a 14.91 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 27,921 shares of company stock valued at $9,876,619 over the last quarter. 0.02% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

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.