Nomura Asset Management Co. Ltd. Purchases 741 Shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Nomura Asset Management Co. Ltd. lifted its position in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 0.3% in the 4th quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The fund owned 219,886 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after acquiring an additional 741 shares during the quarter. Nomura Asset Management Co. Ltd.’s holdings in Accenture were worth $77,354,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently made changes to their positions in the company. Morse Asset Management Inc purchased a new position in Accenture during the third quarter valued at $25,000. FPC Investment Advisory Inc. increased its stake in shares of Accenture by 62.2% in the 4th quarter. FPC Investment Advisory Inc. now owns 73 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $28,000 after acquiring an additional 28 shares in the last quarter. Kohmann Bosshard Financial Services LLC purchased a new position in Accenture during the 4th quarter valued at about $30,000. POM Investment Strategies LLC grew its holdings in Accenture by 64.2% in the fourth quarter. POM Investment Strategies LLC now owns 87 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $31,000 after purchasing an additional 34 shares during the period. Finally, Retirement Wealth Solutions LLC bought a new position in shares of Accenture during the fourth quarter valued at approximately $34,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several research firms recently weighed in on ACN. UBS Group cut their price target on Accenture from $455.00 to $387.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research note on Friday, March 21st. Jefferies Financial Group cut their target price on Accenture from $385.00 to $355.00 and set a “hold” rating on the stock in a research note on Tuesday, January 21st. JPMorgan Chase & Co. lifted their price target on Accenture from $370.00 to $396.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Monday, December 16th. Robert W. Baird raised shares of Accenture from a “neutral” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $390.00 price objective on the stock in a research report on Monday, March 17th. Finally, Morgan Stanley dropped their target price on shares of Accenture from $380.00 to $372.00 and set an “equal weight” rating on the stock in a research note on Monday, March 17th. Eight analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, fifteen have assigned a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the company currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $378.23.

Accenture Stock Performance

ACN opened at $308.51 on Friday. Accenture plc has a 12-month low of $278.69 and a 12-month high of $398.35. The company has a market cap of $193.06 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 25.88, a PEG ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.24. 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 company’s 50 day moving average is $355.92 and its 200 day moving average is $356.23.

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

Accenture Announces Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, May 15th. Investors of record on Thursday, April 10th will be issued a $1.48 dividend. This represents a $5.92 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.92%. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, April 10th. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio is 48.89%.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In related news, CAO Melissa A. Burgum sold 232 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, February 5th. The stock was sold at an average price of $394.46, for a total transaction of $91,514.72. Following the completion of the sale, the chief accounting officer now owns 8,915 shares in the company, valued at approximately $3,516,610.90. This trade represents a 2.54 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 8,793 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, February 5th. The stock was sold at an average price of $394.47, for a total value of $3,468,574.71. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 11,858 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $4,677,625.26. The trade was a 42.58 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last 90 days, insiders have sold 21,905 shares of company stock worth $8,181,753. Company insiders own 0.02% of the company’s stock.

Accenture 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.