Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) Stake Increased by Napatree Capital LLC

Napatree Capital LLC increased its stake in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 32.0% in the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund owned 1,192 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after buying an additional 289 shares during the period. Napatree Capital LLC’s holdings in Accenture were worth $419,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also made changes to their positions in the company. Newbridge Financial Services Group Inc. increased its stake in Accenture by 5.7% during the fourth quarter. Newbridge Financial Services Group Inc. now owns 518 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $182,000 after purchasing an additional 28 shares during the last quarter. FPC Investment Advisory Inc. increased its stake in Accenture by 62.2% during the fourth quarter. FPC Investment Advisory Inc. now owns 73 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $28,000 after purchasing an additional 28 shares during the last quarter. Tradition Wealth Management LLC increased its stake in Accenture by 0.3% during the third quarter. Tradition Wealth Management LLC now owns 10,951 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $3,871,000 after purchasing an additional 29 shares during the last quarter. New England Professional Planning Group Inc. increased its stake in Accenture by 4.6% during the fourth quarter. New England Professional Planning Group Inc. now owns 655 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $230,000 after purchasing an additional 29 shares during the last quarter. Finally, TCW Group Inc. increased its stake in Accenture by 0.3% during the third quarter. TCW Group Inc. now owns 11,501 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $4,065,000 after purchasing an additional 30 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several equities analysts have recently issued reports on the stock. Wolfe Research raised shares of Accenture from a “peer perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $425.00 price target for the company in a report on Wednesday, January 8th. Mizuho reduced their price target on shares of Accenture from $428.00 to $398.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a report on Wednesday. StockNews.com downgraded shares of Accenture from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Tuesday, March 11th. Jefferies Financial Group reduced their price objective on shares of Accenture from $385.00 to $355.00 and set a “hold” rating for the company in a report on Tuesday, January 21st. Finally, Morgan Stanley reduced their price objective on shares of Accenture from $380.00 to $372.00 and set an “equal weight” rating for the company in a report on Monday, March 17th. Eight research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, fifteen have issued a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $380.05.

Insider Activity

In related news, CFO Angie Y. Park sold 685 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, January 17th. The stock was sold at an average price of $354.38, for a total value of $242,750.30. Following the completion of the sale, the chief financial officer now owns 8,674 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $3,073,892.12. The trade was a 7.32 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this link. Also, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 8,793 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, February 5th. The shares were sold at an average price of $394.47, for a total value of $3,468,574.71. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 11,858 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $4,677,625.26. The trade was a 42.58 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 22,280 shares of company stock worth $8,316,190 in the last 90 days. Company insiders own 0.02% of the company’s stock.

Accenture Price Performance

NYSE ACN opened at $305.17 on Friday. The company has a market cap of $190.97 billion, a PE ratio of 25.60, a PEG ratio of 3.23 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 current ratio of 1.47, a quick ratio of 1.47 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17. The stock’s 50-day moving average price is $359.16 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $357.24.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last issued its earnings results on Thursday, March 20th. The information technology services provider reported $2.82 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.81 by $0.01. The company had revenue of $16.70 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $16.64 billion. Accenture had a return on equity of 26.91% and a net margin of 11.41%. The firm’s quarterly revenue was up 5.7% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company earned $2.77 EPS. On average, analysts predict that Accenture plc will post 12.73 EPS for the current year.

Accenture Announces Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, May 15th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, April 10th will be issued a $1.48 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, April 10th. This represents a $5.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.94%. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio is 49.66%.

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.