Hilltop National Bank Raises Stock Holdings in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Hilltop National Bank boosted its holdings in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 6.6% in the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the SEC. The fund owned 1,283 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after buying an additional 79 shares during the quarter. Hilltop National Bank’s holdings in Accenture were worth $451,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other hedge funds have also bought and sold shares of ACN. ORG Partners LLC increased its position in shares of Accenture by 103.0% during the 4th quarter. ORG Partners LLC now owns 871 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $307,000 after purchasing an additional 442 shares during the last quarter. First Hawaiian Bank increased its position in shares of Accenture by 14.4% during the 4th quarter. First Hawaiian Bank now owns 2,444 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $860,000 after purchasing an additional 307 shares during the last quarter. Fulton Bank N.A. increased its position in shares of Accenture by 7.4% during the 4th quarter. Fulton Bank N.A. now owns 12,655 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $4,452,000 after purchasing an additional 868 shares during the last quarter. Range Financial Group LLC bought a new position in shares of Accenture during the 4th quarter valued at approximately $612,000. Finally, One Wealth Capital Management LLC bought a new position in shares of Accenture during the 4th quarter valued at approximately $771,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

Accenture Stock Performance

NYSE:ACN opened at $349.93 on Friday. The stock’s fifty day moving average is $357.82 and its 200 day moving average is $343.77. Accenture plc has a fifty-two week low of $278.69 and a fifty-two week high of $387.51. The firm has a market capitalization of $218.98 billion, a PE ratio of 30.62, a PEG ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.24.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last released its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, December 19th. The information technology services provider reported $3.59 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $3.43 by $0.16. Accenture had a return on equity of 26.83% and a net margin of 11.20%. The company had revenue of $17.69 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $17.15 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm posted $3.27 EPS. Accenture’s quarterly revenue was up 9.0% compared to the same quarter last year. Equities analysts forecast that Accenture plc will post 12.74 EPS for the current year.

Accenture Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, February 14th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, January 16th will be paid a $1.48 dividend. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, January 16th. This represents a $5.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.69%. Accenture’s payout ratio is 49.66%.

Accenture announced that its board has authorized a share repurchase program on Thursday, September 26th that authorizes the company to buyback $4.00 billion in shares. This buyback authorization authorizes the information technology services provider to reacquire up to 1.8% of its stock through open market purchases. Stock buyback programs are usually an indication that the company’s leadership believes its shares are undervalued.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of brokerages recently issued reports on ACN. Barclays boosted their price objective on Accenture from $350.00 to $415.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Monday, September 30th. Piper Sandler boosted their price objective on Accenture from $422.00 to $429.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Thursday, December 19th. Mizuho upped their price target on Accenture from $352.00 to $365.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research note on Wednesday, September 18th. Citigroup upped their price target on Accenture from $350.00 to $405.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Tuesday, September 17th. Finally, StockNews.com downgraded Accenture from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Sunday, January 5th. Nine equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and fifteen have given a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $385.04.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Accenture news, General Counsel Joel Unruch sold 4,750 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Wednesday, October 23rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $369.97, for a total transaction of $1,757,357.50. Following the completion of the sale, the general counsel now owns 22,976 shares in the company, valued at $8,500,430.72. This represents a 17.13 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. Also, insider Angela Beatty sold 375 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Monday, December 23rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $358.50, for a total value of $134,437.50. Following the sale, the insider now owns 5,149 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $1,845,916.50. This represents a 6.79 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 36,673 shares of company stock worth $13,507,099 over the last quarter. Company insiders own 0.02% of the company’s stock.

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.