Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) Holdings Cut by Eagle Bay Advisors LLC

Eagle Bay Advisors LLC lowered its holdings in shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 3.0% during the fourth quarter, according to its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 1,053 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after selling 33 shares during the quarter. Eagle Bay Advisors LLC’s holdings in Accenture were worth $370,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also modified their holdings of ACN. State Street Corp raised its holdings in 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 acquiring an additional 471,792 shares during the period. Massachusetts Financial Services Co. MA raised its holdings in Accenture by 1.2% in the 2nd quarter. Massachusetts Financial Services Co. MA now owns 10,912,962 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $3,311,102,000 after acquiring an additional 131,544 shares during the period. Legal & General Group Plc raised its holdings in Accenture by 1.4% in the 2nd 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 during the period. UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC raised its holdings in Accenture by 378.9% in the 3rd 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 period. Finally, Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. raised its holdings in 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 worth $1,705,100,000 after acquiring an additional 56,937 shares during the period. Institutional investors own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

ACN has been the topic of several research analyst reports. BMO Capital Markets raised their price target on shares of Accenture from $390.00 to $425.00 and gave the stock a “market perform” rating in a research report on Friday, December 20th. Citigroup raised their price target on shares of Accenture from $350.00 to $405.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Tuesday, September 17th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised their price target on shares of Accenture from $370.00 to $396.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Monday, December 16th. Wolfe Research upgraded shares of Accenture from a “peer perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $425.00 price target on the stock in a research report on Wednesday, January 8th. Finally, Guggenheim lifted their target price on shares of Accenture from $380.00 to $395.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, September 27th. Eight equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and sixteen have assigned a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $385.04.

Accenture Stock Performance

Shares of NYSE ACN traded down $1.20 during trading on Monday, reaching $348.59. The company had a trading volume of 638,618 shares, compared to its average volume of 2,417,296. Accenture plc has a 52 week low of $278.69 and a 52 week high of $387.51. The stock has a market cap of $218.14 billion, a PE ratio of 30.50, a PEG ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.24. The business’s 50 day moving average price is $357.82 and its 200-day moving average price is $344.30.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last announced its earnings results on Thursday, December 19th. The information technology services provider reported $3.59 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates 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 net margin of 11.20% and a return on equity of 26.83%. The company’s revenue was up 9.0% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the firm posted $3.27 earnings per share. Equities analysts anticipate that Accenture plc will post 12.74 earnings per share for the current year.

Accenture Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently declared 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. This represents a $5.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.70%. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, January 16th. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 49.66%.

Accenture declared that its Board of Directors has initiated a share buyback plan 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 reacquire up to 1.8% of its stock through open market purchases. Stock buyback plans are typically an indication that the company’s board believes its shares are undervalued.

Insider Buying and Selling

In related news, CEO Ryoji Sekido sold 3,191 shares of the business’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 completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 6 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $2,062.20. The trade was a 99.81 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at this link. Also, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 9,000 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, October 21st. The stock was sold at an average price of $376.16, for a total transaction of $3,385,440.00. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 20,324 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $7,645,075.84. This trade represents a 30.69 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 36,673 shares of company stock valued at $13,507,099 over the last ninety days. Insiders own 0.02% of the company’s stock.

Accenture Company 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.