OV Management LLC Increases Stock Position in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

OV Management LLC lifted its position in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 6.0% during the 4th quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The firm owned 2,810 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after acquiring an additional 159 shares during the quarter. OV Management LLC’s holdings in Accenture were worth $989,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently added to or reduced their stakes in ACN. Baldwin Wealth Partners LLC MA grew its stake in shares of Accenture by 6.5% in the 4th quarter. Baldwin Wealth Partners LLC MA now owns 63,429 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $22,314,000 after buying an additional 3,883 shares in the last quarter. Davidson Trust Co. raised its holdings in Accenture by 7.4% during the 4th quarter. Davidson Trust Co. now owns 2,307 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $812,000 after buying an additional 158 shares during the period. Franklin Street Advisors Inc. NC increased its position in Accenture by 126.8% during the fourth quarter. Franklin Street Advisors Inc. NC now owns 40,051 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $14,090,000 after acquiring an additional 22,391 shares during the last quarter. China Universal Asset Management Co. Ltd. lifted its holdings in shares of Accenture by 37.5% in the 4th quarter. China Universal Asset Management Co. Ltd. now owns 3,094 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $1,088,000 after acquiring an additional 843 shares during the last quarter. Finally, SteelPeak Wealth LLC grew its holdings in Accenture by 127.1% during the 4th quarter. SteelPeak Wealth LLC now owns 2,323 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $817,000 after purchasing an additional 1,300 shares during the last quarter. 75.14% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other Accenture news, CFO Angie Y. Park sold 685 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, January 17th. The stock was sold at an average price of $354.38, for a total transaction of $242,750.30. Following the transaction, the chief financial officer now owns 8,674 shares in the company, valued at approximately $3,073,892.12. This represents a 7.32 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, CAO Melissa A. Burgum sold 232 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, February 5th. The shares were sold at an average price of $394.46, for a total value of $91,514.72. Following the transaction, the chief accounting officer now owns 8,915 shares in the company, valued at $3,516,610.90. This trade represents a 2.54 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 21,905 shares of company stock valued at $8,181,753 over the last ninety days. Company insiders own 0.02% of the company’s stock.

Accenture Price Performance

NYSE ACN opened at $312.78 on Tuesday. The stock’s fifty day moving average price is $354.17 and its 200 day moving average price is $355.81. 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. The company has a market cap of $195.90 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 26.24, a PEG ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.24.

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

Accenture Announces Dividend

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, May 15th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, April 10th will be paid a $1.48 dividend. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, April 10th. This represents a $5.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.89%. Accenture’s payout ratio is 48.89%.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of research firms have recently commented on ACN. Piper Sandler cut their target price on Accenture from $396.00 to $364.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a research note on Thursday, March 20th. Royal Bank of Canada reduced their target price on Accenture from $399.00 to $392.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a research note on Friday, March 21st. Mizuho cut their price target on shares of Accenture from $428.00 to $398.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a report on Wednesday, March 19th. Guggenheim decreased their price objective on shares of Accenture from $400.00 to $395.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a report on Friday, March 21st. Finally, Robert W. Baird raised shares of Accenture from a “neutral” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $390.00 target price on the stock in a research report on Monday, March 17th. Eight equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, fifteen have issued a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $378.23.

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.