Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) Shares Sold by Mill Creek Capital Advisors LLC

Mill Creek Capital Advisors LLC lessened its holdings in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 59.2% during the 3rd quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The firm owned 2,016 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after selling 2,928 shares during the quarter. Mill Creek Capital Advisors LLC’s holdings in Accenture were worth $713,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

A number of other institutional investors also recently bought and sold shares of the business. Turtle Creek Wealth Advisors LLC lifted its holdings in shares of Accenture by 50.4% in the 3rd quarter. Turtle Creek Wealth Advisors LLC now owns 1,044 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $369,000 after buying an additional 350 shares during the period. Natixis Advisors LLC lifted its holdings in Accenture by 22.4% in the third quarter. Natixis Advisors LLC now owns 674,798 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $238,527,000 after acquiring an additional 123,583 shares during the period. Ipswich Investment Management Co. Inc. grew its stake in shares of Accenture by 1.8% during the 3rd quarter. Ipswich Investment Management Co. Inc. now owns 23,983 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $8,478,000 after purchasing an additional 420 shares during the period. Nicollet Investment Management Inc. lifted its stake in shares of Accenture by 0.9% in the 3rd quarter. Nicollet Investment Management Inc. now owns 13,399 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $4,736,000 after purchasing an additional 118 shares during the period. Finally, Coastline Trust Co boosted its holdings in Accenture by 1.2% during the third quarter. Coastline Trust Co now owns 15,758 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $5,570,000 after buying an additional 187 shares in the last quarter. 75.14% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of brokerages have issued reports on ACN. UBS Group increased their price target on Accenture from $400.00 to $415.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, September 27th. BNP Paribas lowered Accenture from an “outperform” rating to a “neutral” rating and set a $375.00 target price on the stock. in a research report on Wednesday, October 30th. BMO Capital Markets boosted their price target on shares of Accenture from $380.00 to $390.00 and gave the stock a “market perform” rating in a report on Friday, September 27th. StockNews.com downgraded shares of Accenture from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Thursday, October 24th. Finally, Robert W. Baird boosted their target price on shares of Accenture from $350.00 to $370.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research note on Friday, September 27th. Ten analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and thirteen have given a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $368.23.

Accenture Stock Down 2.3 %

Shares of Accenture stock opened at $353.57 on Friday. Accenture plc has a 52 week low of $278.69 and a 52 week high of $387.51. The firm’s 50 day moving average is $355.55 and its two-hundred day moving average is $327.26. The firm has a market capitalization of $221.04 billion, a P/E ratio of 30.93, a P/E/G ratio of 3.24 and a beta of 1.25.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last posted its earnings results on Thursday, September 26th. The information technology services provider reported $2.79 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.78 by $0.01. Accenture had a net margin of 11.20% and a return on equity of 26.83%. The firm had revenue of $16.41 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $16.37 billion. During the same period last year, the firm posted $2.71 EPS. The company’s revenue was up 2.6% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, research analysts expect that Accenture plc will post 12.77 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Accenture Increases Dividend

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

Accenture declared that its Board of Directors has initiated a stock repurchase 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 purchase up to 1.8% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares buyback programs are typically an indication that the company’s board believes its stock is undervalued.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, CEO Ryoji Sekido sold 3,191 shares of the business’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 value of $1,096,746.70. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 6 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $2,062.20. The trade was a 99.81 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Also, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 8,136 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Monday, October 28th. The shares were sold at an average price of $362.07, for a total transaction of $2,945,801.52. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 12,188 shares in the company, valued at $4,412,909.16. This represents a 40.03 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 36,298 shares of company stock valued at $13,372,661 over the last quarter. Company insiders own 0.07% 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.