Swiss National Bank Decreases Stock Holdings in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Swiss National Bank trimmed its holdings in shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 0.1% in the 3rd quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The institutional investor owned 1,859,200 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after selling 2,200 shares during the quarter. Swiss National Bank’s holdings in Accenture were worth $657,190,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Several other large investors also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the business. Swedbank AB bought a new position in shares of Accenture in the first quarter worth about $820,912,000. Clearbridge Investments LLC boosted its holdings in shares of Accenture by 44.7% in the 2nd quarter. Clearbridge Investments LLC now owns 2,709,989 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $822,238,000 after buying an additional 837,677 shares in the last quarter. 1832 Asset Management L.P. boosted its holdings in shares of Accenture by 251.3% in the 2nd quarter. 1832 Asset Management L.P. now owns 995,896 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $302,165,000 after buying an additional 712,400 shares in the last quarter. Capital International Investors boosted its holdings in shares of Accenture by 196.5% in the 1st quarter. Capital International Investors now owns 988,094 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $342,483,000 after buying an additional 654,807 shares in the last quarter. Finally, International Assets Investment Management LLC raised its position in shares of Accenture by 37,788.5% in the 3rd quarter. International Assets Investment Management LLC now owns 510,358 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $180,401,000 after purchasing an additional 509,011 shares during the last quarter. 75.14% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several brokerages recently commented on ACN. Piper Sandler Companies reaffirmed a “neutral” rating and issued a $329.00 price objective on shares of Accenture in a research report on Friday, September 20th. Guggenheim raised their price target on shares of Accenture from $380.00 to $395.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, September 27th. BNP Paribas lowered shares of Accenture from an “outperform” rating to a “neutral” rating and set a $375.00 price target for the company. in a research report on Wednesday, October 30th. Mizuho raised their price target on shares of Accenture from $352.00 to $365.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research report on Wednesday, September 18th. Finally, Piper Sandler raised shares of Accenture from a “neutral” rating to an “overweight” rating and raised their price objective for the stock from $329.00 to $395.00 in a research note on Thursday, September 26th. Ten equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and thirteen have given a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $368.23.

Insider Transactions at Accenture

In other Accenture news, insider Angela Beatty sold 673 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, October 22nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $372.18, for a total value of $250,477.14. Following the completion of the sale, the insider now owns 5,650 shares in the company, valued at $2,102,817. The trade was a 10.64 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this link. Also, CEO Ryoji Sekido sold 3,191 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction dated Monday, November 4th. The shares were sold at an average price of $343.70, for a total value of $1,096,746.70. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 6 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $2,062.20. This trade represents a 99.81 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 36,298 shares of company stock valued at $13,372,661 in the last 90 days. 0.07% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Accenture Price Performance

Accenture stock opened at $353.57 on Friday. Accenture plc has a 12 month low of $278.69 and a 12 month high of $387.51. The business has a 50 day simple moving average of $355.55 and a 200-day simple moving average of $327.26. The stock has a market capitalization of $221.04 billion, a PE ratio of 30.93, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.09 and a beta of 1.25.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last released its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, September 26th. The information technology services provider reported $2.79 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $2.78 by $0.01. The business had revenue of $16.41 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $16.37 billion. Accenture had a return on equity of 26.83% and a net margin of 11.20%. The company’s quarterly revenue was up 2.6% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business earned $2.71 earnings per share. As a group, equities research analysts anticipate that Accenture plc will post 12.77 EPS for the current year.

Accenture Increases Dividend

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, November 15th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, October 10th were paid a dividend of $1.48 per share. This represents a $5.92 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.67%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, October 10th. This is an increase from Accenture’s previous quarterly dividend of $1.29. Accenture’s payout ratio is 51.79%.

Accenture declared that its board has authorized a stock repurchase plan on Thursday, September 26th that permits the company to repurchase $4.00 billion in outstanding shares. This repurchase authorization permits the information technology services provider to repurchase up to 1.8% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares repurchase plans are often a sign that the company’s board of directors believes its stock is undervalued.

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.