Brentview Investment Management LLC Invests $4.09 Million in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Brentview Investment Management LLC bought a new position in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) in the 4th quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The fund bought 11,623 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock, valued at approximately $4,089,000. Accenture accounts for about 2.3% of Brentview Investment Management LLC’s portfolio, making the stock its 19th largest holding.

Several other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently modified their holdings of the stock. State Street Corp increased its position 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 purchasing an additional 471,792 shares during the last quarter. UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC increased its position in shares of 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 purchasing an additional 4,345,039 shares during the last quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. grew its position in shares of Accenture by 1.2% during 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 buying an additional 56,937 shares during the last quarter. Swedbank AB raised its stake in Accenture by 47.5% during the fourth quarter. Swedbank AB now owns 3,763,690 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $1,324,029,000 after acquiring an additional 1,212,011 shares during the period. Finally, Stifel Financial Corp raised its stake in Accenture by 1.5% during the third quarter. Stifel Financial Corp now owns 1,892,409 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $668,974,000 after acquiring an additional 28,491 shares during the period. Institutional investors own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several equities research analysts recently weighed in on the stock. The Goldman Sachs Group upgraded shares of Accenture from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and increased their price objective for the stock from $370.00 to $420.00 in a research note on Friday, December 6th. Piper Sandler increased their price objective on shares of Accenture from $422.00 to $429.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research note on Thursday, December 19th. BMO Capital Markets increased their price objective on shares of Accenture from $390.00 to $425.00 and gave the stock a “market perform” rating in a research note on Friday, December 20th. Robert W. Baird reiterated a “neutral” rating and set a $370.00 price objective on shares of Accenture in a research note on Tuesday, December 3rd. Finally, BNP Paribas lowered shares of Accenture from an “outperform” rating to a “neutral” rating and set a $375.00 price target on the stock. in a research note on Wednesday, October 30th. Eight research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and sixteen have assigned a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $387.22.

Accenture Trading Up 1.1 %

Accenture stock opened at $384.88 on Monday. The firm has a 50 day simple moving average of $359.56 and a 200-day simple moving average of $350.06. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17, a current ratio of 1.47 and a quick ratio of 1.47. The stock has a market capitalization of $240.86 billion, a PE ratio of 32.29, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.33 and a beta of 1.24. Accenture plc has a 12-month low of $278.69 and a 12-month high of $387.51.

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 analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.43 by $0.16. The firm had revenue of $17.69 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $17.15 billion. Accenture had a net margin of 11.41% and a return on equity of 26.91%. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 9.0% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period last year, the firm posted $3.27 earnings per share. As a group, equities 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 issued a dividend of $1.48 per share. This represents a $5.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.54%. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, January 16th. Accenture’s payout ratio is 49.66%.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other Accenture news, 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 completion of the sale, the insider now owns 5,149 shares in the company, valued at $1,845,916.50. This represents a 6.79 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this hyperlink. Also, General Counsel Joel Unruch sold 4,750 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, January 24th. The stock was sold at an average price of $362.78, for a total transaction of $1,723,205.00. Following the completion of the sale, the general counsel now owns 20,526 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $7,446,422.28. The trade was a 18.79 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last ninety days, insiders sold 13,255 shares of company stock worth $4,756,101. 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.