Strengthening Families & Communities LLC Raises Position in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Strengthening Families & Communities LLC raised its position in shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 0.9% in the fourth quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The fund owned 7,874 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after acquiring an additional 74 shares during the quarter. Accenture makes up approximately 1.6% of Strengthening Families & Communities LLC’s portfolio, making the stock its 17th biggest holding. Strengthening Families & Communities LLC’s holdings in Accenture were worth $2,770,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

A number of other institutional investors have also recently made changes to their positions in ACN. State Street Corp lifted its stake 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 purchasing an additional 471,792 shares in the last quarter. UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC raised its position in shares of Accenture by 378.9% during 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 valued at $1,941,219,000 after buying an additional 4,345,039 shares during the period. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. lifted its holdings in Accenture by 1.2% in the third 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 acquiring an additional 56,937 shares during the last quarter. Swedbank AB increased 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 last quarter. Finally, Stifel Financial Corp lifted its stake in shares of Accenture by 1.5% in the 3rd quarter. Stifel Financial Corp now owns 1,892,409 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $668,974,000 after purchasing an additional 28,491 shares during the last quarter. 75.14% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Accenture news, insider Angela Beatty sold 375 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Monday, December 23rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $358.50, for a total transaction of $134,437.50. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider now owns 5,149 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,845,916.50. This represents a 6.79 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, CAO Melissa A. Burgum sold 1,487 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, January 21st. The shares were sold at an average price of $354.54, for a total transaction of $527,200.98. Following the completion of the sale, the chief accounting officer now directly owns 9,247 shares in the company, valued at approximately $3,278,431.38. The trade was a 13.85 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last three months, insiders have sold 22,280 shares of company stock valued at $8,316,190. Insiders own 0.02% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several brokerages recently issued reports on ACN. The Goldman Sachs Group upgraded shares of Accenture from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and boosted their price objective for the company from $370.00 to $420.00 in a report on Friday, December 6th. BNP Paribas lowered shares of Accenture from an “outperform” rating to a “neutral” rating and set a $375.00 price objective on the stock. in a report on Wednesday, October 30th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. boosted their target price on Accenture from $370.00 to $396.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Monday, December 16th. UBS Group boosted their price objective on Accenture from $450.00 to $455.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Friday, December 20th. Finally, Piper Sandler raised their target price on Accenture from $422.00 to $429.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Thursday, December 19th. Eight research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and sixteen have assigned a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $387.22.

Accenture Price Performance

Shares of ACN opened at $386.72 on Tuesday. The firm has a fifty day moving average price of $362.30 and a 200 day moving average price of $352.34. The stock has a market cap of $242.00 billion, a PE ratio of 32.44, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.44 and a beta of 1.24. Accenture plc has a 1-year low of $278.69 and a 1-year high of $398.35. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17, a current ratio of 1.47 and a quick ratio of 1.47.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last announced its earnings results on Thursday, December 19th. The information technology services provider reported $3.59 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating 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 return on equity of 26.91% and a net margin of 11.41%. The business’s revenue was up 9.0% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the prior year, the firm earned $3.27 EPS. As a group, sell-side analysts anticipate that Accenture plc will post 12.73 EPS for the current year.

Accenture Announces Dividend

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 given a $1.48 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, January 16th. This represents a $5.92 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.53%. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 49.66%.

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.