CX Institutional Grows Position in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

CX Institutional grew its position in shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 12.1% in the fourth quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The fund owned 21,121 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after buying an additional 2,281 shares during the quarter. CX Institutional’s holdings in Accenture were worth $7,430,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Several other large investors also recently bought and sold shares of the business. State Street Corp grew its stake in shares of Accenture by 1.8% in the 3rd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 27,400,836 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $9,685,648,000 after buying an additional 471,792 shares in the last quarter. Legal & General Group Plc grew its position in Accenture by 1.4% in the second quarter. Legal & General Group Plc now owns 5,887,266 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $1,786,256,000 after acquiring an additional 80,514 shares in the last quarter. UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC increased its stake in Accenture by 378.9% during the third quarter. UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC now owns 5,491,736 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $1,941,219,000 after acquiring an additional 4,345,039 shares during the last quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. lifted its stake in shares of Accenture by 1.2% in the 3rd quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 4,823,754 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $1,705,100,000 after purchasing an additional 56,937 shares during the last quarter. Finally, 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 worth $822,238,000 after purchasing an additional 837,677 shares during the period. Institutional investors own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

ACN has been the subject of a number of analyst reports. Royal Bank of Canada raised their price target on Accenture from $377.00 to $389.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research report on Friday, September 27th. StockNews.com raised shares of Accenture from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research note on Monday, January 13th. Guggenheim increased their price objective 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. TD Cowen upgraded Accenture from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and boosted their target price for the company from $321.00 to $400.00 in a research report on Monday, September 30th. Finally, Bank of America increased their price target on Accenture from $365.00 to $388.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Friday, September 27th. Eight research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and sixteen have given a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, Accenture has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $383.74.

Insider Buying and Selling at Accenture

In other Accenture news, CEO Ryoji Sekido sold 3,191 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, November 4th. The shares were sold at an average price of $343.70, for a total transaction of $1,096,746.70. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 6 shares in the company, valued at approximately $2,062.20. This represents a 99.81 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 8,136 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction on Monday, October 28th. The stock was sold at an average price of $362.07, for a total transaction of $2,945,801.52. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 12,188 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $4,412,909.16. The trade was a 40.03 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last ninety days, insiders sold 17,332 shares of company stock worth $6,172,719. 0.02% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Accenture Stock Performance

Shares of Accenture stock opened at $360.99 on Friday. Accenture plc has a one year low of $278.69 and a one year high of $387.51. The company has a market capitalization of $225.90 billion, a PE ratio of 30.31, a P/E/G ratio of 3.20 and a beta of 1.24. 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 company has a 50-day simple moving average of $357.18 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $346.75.

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

Accenture Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, February 14th. Investors of record on Thursday, January 16th will be paid a dividend of $1.48 per share. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, January 16th. This represents a $5.92 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.64%. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 49.66%.

Accenture announced that its board has approved a share buyback program on Thursday, September 26th that permits the company to buyback $4.00 billion in shares. This buyback authorization permits the information technology services provider to buy up to 1.8% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares buyback programs are usually a sign that the company’s leadership 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.