Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) Shares Purchased by Veracity Capital LLC

Veracity Capital LLC grew its position in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 5.7% in the fourth quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The institutional investor owned 2,271 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after purchasing an additional 123 shares during the period. Veracity Capital LLC’s holdings in Accenture were worth $799,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Several other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also made changes to their positions in ACN. Morse Asset Management Inc purchased a new stake in shares of Accenture in the third quarter valued at about $25,000. MidAtlantic Capital Management Inc. purchased a new stake in Accenture in the 3rd quarter valued at approximately $30,000. Retirement Wealth Solutions LLC acquired a new stake in Accenture during the 4th quarter valued at $34,000. Mowery & Schoenfeld Wealth Management LLC increased its position in Accenture by 607.1% during the third quarter. Mowery & Schoenfeld Wealth Management LLC now owns 99 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $35,000 after buying an additional 85 shares in the last quarter. Finally, RPg Family Wealth Advisory LLC acquired a new position in shares of Accenture in the third quarter worth $39,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

Accenture Stock Performance

NYSE:ACN opened at $362.76 on Friday. Accenture plc has a twelve month low of $278.69 and a twelve month high of $387.51. The firm has a market capitalization of $227.01 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 30.43, a PEG ratio of 3.17 and a beta of 1.24. The company has a current ratio of 1.47, a quick ratio of 1.47 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17. The firm’s fifty day simple moving average is $357.18 and its 200 day simple moving average is $346.75.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last issued its earnings results on Thursday, December 19th. The information technology services provider reported $3.59 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $3.43 by $0.16. The company had revenue of $17.69 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $17.15 billion. Accenture had a return on equity of 26.91% and a net margin of 11.41%. The company’s revenue was up 9.0% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business earned $3.27 earnings per share. As a group, equities research analysts expect that Accenture plc will post 12.69 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Accenture Dividend Announcement

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, February 14th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, January 16th will be paid a $1.48 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, January 16th. This represents a $5.92 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.63%. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 49.66%.

Accenture declared that its board has approved a share buyback program on Thursday, September 26th that permits the company to repurchase $4.00 billion in shares. This repurchase authorization permits the information technology services provider to repurchase up to 1.8% of its stock through open market purchases. Stock repurchase programs are typically a sign that the company’s board believes its shares are undervalued.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of analysts recently commented on ACN shares. Guggenheim lifted their price objective on Accenture from $380.00 to $395.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, September 27th. BMO Capital Markets lifted their price target on shares of Accenture from $390.00 to $425.00 and gave the stock a “market perform” rating in a report on Friday, December 20th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. upped their price objective on shares of Accenture from $370.00 to $396.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Monday, December 16th. The Goldman Sachs Group upgraded Accenture from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and boosted their price target for the company from $370.00 to $420.00 in a report on Friday, December 6th. Finally, Jefferies Financial Group lowered their price objective on Accenture from $385.00 to $355.00 and set a “hold” rating for the company in a research report on Tuesday. Eight analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and sixteen have given a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $383.74.

Insider Activity at Accenture

In other Accenture news, CEO Ryoji Sekido sold 3,191 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, November 4th. The stock was sold at an average price of $343.70, for a total transaction of $1,096,746.70. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 6 shares in the company, valued at $2,062.20. This trade represents a 99.81 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. Also, insider Angela Beatty sold 375 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, December 23rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $358.50, for a total value of $134,437.50. Following the transaction, the insider now owns 5,149 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $1,845,916.50. This trade represents a 6.79 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last three months, insiders sold 17,332 shares of company stock valued at $6,172,719. Corporate 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.