Texas Bank & Trust Co Acquires Shares of 8,146 Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Texas Bank & Trust Co purchased a new position in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) during the fourth quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The fund purchased 8,146 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock, valued at approximately $2,866,000. Accenture makes up about 1.2% of Texas Bank & Trust Co’s holdings, making the stock its 25th largest position.

Several other institutional investors also recently added to or reduced their stakes in ACN. Baldwin Wealth Partners LLC MA raised its holdings in shares of Accenture by 6.5% in the 4th quarter. Baldwin Wealth Partners LLC MA now owns 63,429 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $22,314,000 after purchasing an additional 3,883 shares during the period. Davidson Trust Co. raised its stake in shares of Accenture by 7.4% in the fourth quarter. Davidson Trust Co. now owns 2,307 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $812,000 after buying an additional 158 shares during the period. China Universal Asset Management Co. Ltd. lifted its position in shares of Accenture by 37.5% during the 4th quarter. China Universal Asset Management Co. Ltd. now owns 3,094 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $1,088,000 after buying an additional 843 shares during the last quarter. SteelPeak Wealth LLC grew its stake in shares of Accenture by 127.1% during the 4th quarter. SteelPeak Wealth LLC now owns 2,323 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $817,000 after acquiring an additional 1,300 shares during the period. Finally, Capital Research Global Investors increased its holdings in Accenture by 16.8% in the 4th quarter. Capital Research Global Investors now owns 12,295,748 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $4,325,526,000 after acquiring an additional 1,770,024 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of brokerages have weighed in on ACN. Barclays cut their target price on shares of Accenture from $415.00 to $390.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a research report on Monday, March 24th. StockNews.com lowered shares of Accenture from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Tuesday, March 11th. BMO Capital Markets increased their target price on Accenture to $355.00 and gave the stock a “hold” rating in a research report on Wednesday, March 26th. Stifel Nicolaus reduced their price target on Accenture from $390.00 to $380.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research report on Wednesday, February 26th. Finally, Piper Sandler dropped their price objective on Accenture from $364.00 to $355.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a report on Wednesday, April 16th. Seven investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, fifteen have issued a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the stock presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $381.76.

Accenture Stock Performance

NYSE ACN opened at $317.45 on Friday. The firm has a market cap of $198.83 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 26.63, a PEG ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.35. The company has a 50-day simple moving average of $302.60 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $341.18. 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 plc has a 12-month low of $275.01 and a 12-month high of $398.35.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last released its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, March 20th. The information technology services provider reported $2.82 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.81 by $0.01. Accenture had a return on equity of 26.91% and a net margin of 11.41%. The firm had revenue of $16.70 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $16.64 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm posted $2.77 earnings per share. The business’s quarterly revenue was up 5.7% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, equities 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 was paid on Thursday, May 15th. Investors of record on Thursday, April 10th were paid a $1.48 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, April 10th. This represents a $5.92 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.86%. Accenture’s payout ratio is presently 48.89%.

Insider Activity at Accenture

In other news, COO John F. Walsh sold 2,500 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, May 13th. The shares were sold at an average price of $325.00, for a total transaction of $812,500.00. Following the sale, the chief operating officer now owns 15,882 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $5,161,650. The trade was a 13.60% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Also, 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 transaction of $1,003,982.14. Following the completion of the transaction, the general counsel now directly owns 17,237 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $4,857,041.86. The trade was a 17.13% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 8,516 shares of company stock worth $2,507,366 in the last 90 days. Company 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.