Laird Norton Wetherby Wealth Management LLC Reduces Holdings in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Laird Norton Wetherby Wealth Management LLC reduced its holdings in shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 1.8% in the 4th quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 29,020 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after selling 542 shares during the quarter. Accenture makes up 0.5% of Laird Norton Wetherby Wealth Management LLC’s investment portfolio, making the stock its 29th largest position. Laird Norton Wetherby Wealth Management LLC’s holdings in Accenture were worth $10,209,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also modified their holdings of the company. Newbridge Financial Services Group Inc. lifted its holdings in Accenture by 5.7% during the 4th quarter. Newbridge Financial Services Group Inc. now owns 518 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $182,000 after purchasing an additional 28 shares during the last quarter. FPC Investment Advisory Inc. lifted its holdings in Accenture by 62.2% during the 4th quarter. FPC Investment Advisory Inc. now owns 73 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $28,000 after purchasing an additional 28 shares during the last quarter. New England Professional Planning Group Inc. lifted its holdings in Accenture by 4.6% during the 4th quarter. New England Professional Planning Group Inc. now owns 655 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $230,000 after purchasing an additional 29 shares during the last quarter. Nemes Rush Group LLC lifted its holdings in shares of Accenture by 7.5% during the fourth quarter. Nemes Rush Group LLC now owns 418 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $147,000 after buying an additional 29 shares in the last quarter. Finally, M3 Advisory Group LLC lifted its holdings in shares of Accenture by 4.1% during the fourth quarter. M3 Advisory Group LLC now owns 753 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $265,000 after buying an additional 30 shares in the last quarter. 75.14% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Accenture Stock Performance

NYSE ACN opened at $307.85 on Monday. The company has a market cap of $192.82 billion, a P/E ratio of 25.83, a P/E/G ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.35. 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 business’s 50 day moving average price is $304.36 and its 200-day moving average price is $342.35. Accenture plc has a fifty-two week low of $275.01 and a fifty-two week high of $398.35.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last announced 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 for 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%. Accenture’s quarterly revenue was up 5.7% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company posted $2.77 EPS. Sell-side analysts predict that Accenture plc will post 12.73 earnings per share for the current year.

Accenture Announces Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, May 15th. Investors of record on Thursday, April 10th will be paid a dividend of $1.48 per share. This represents a $5.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.92%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, April 10th. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 48.89%.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of equities research analysts have recently weighed in on the company. UBS Group dropped their target price on Accenture from $455.00 to $387.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a report on Friday, March 21st. StockNews.com downgraded Accenture from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Tuesday, March 11th. Mizuho dropped their price target on Accenture from $428.00 to $398.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research note on Wednesday, March 19th. Piper Sandler dropped their price target on Accenture from $364.00 to $355.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a research note on Wednesday, April 16th. Finally, Baird R W raised Accenture from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Monday, March 17th. Eight research 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 stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $377.82.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other Accenture news, General Counsel Joel Unruch sold 3,563 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Friday, April 11th. The stock was sold at an average price of $281.78, for a total value of $1,003,982.14. Following the completion of the sale, the general counsel now directly owns 17,237 shares in the company, valued at approximately $4,857,041.86. This trade represents a 17.13% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, insider Angela Beatty sold 169 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Friday, April 11th. The shares were sold at an average price of $281.90, for a total value of $47,641.10. Following the completion of the sale, the insider now owns 5,364 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $1,512,111.60. This trade represents a 3.05% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 6,016 shares of company stock worth $1,694,866 in the last three months. 0.02% of the stock is owned by insiders.

About Accenture

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.