The Manufacturers Life Insurance Company Cuts Position in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

The Manufacturers Life Insurance Company reduced its position in shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 18.5% in the third quarter, according to its most recent filing with the SEC. The fund owned 776,909 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after selling 175,804 shares during the quarter. The Manufacturers Life Insurance Company owned about 0.12% of Accenture worth $274,622,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently modified their holdings of ACN. Gamco Investors INC. ET AL purchased a new stake in shares of Accenture during the 1st quarter valued at about $256,000. B. Riley Wealth Advisors Inc. raised its position in Accenture by 31.4% during the first quarter. B. Riley Wealth Advisors Inc. now owns 11,570 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $4,010,000 after purchasing an additional 2,768 shares during the period. Creekmur Asset Management LLC lifted its stake in shares of Accenture by 108.0% in the 1st quarter. Creekmur Asset Management LLC now owns 104 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $36,000 after purchasing an additional 54 shares during the last quarter. Coppell Advisory Solutions Corp. bought a new position in shares of Accenture during the 1st quarter valued at approximately $1,784,000. Finally, Vista Investment Partners LLC raised its holdings in Accenture by 0.3% during the 1st quarter. Vista Investment Partners LLC now owns 13,130 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $4,551,000 after buying an additional 39 shares during the period. 75.14% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several research analysts have commented on ACN shares. Citigroup lifted their price objective on shares of Accenture from $350.00 to $405.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Tuesday, September 17th. BMO Capital Markets lifted their price target on shares of Accenture from $380.00 to $390.00 and gave the stock a “market perform” rating in a research note on Friday, September 27th. Royal Bank of Canada increased their price objective on shares of Accenture from $377.00 to $389.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research report on Friday, September 27th. Mizuho boosted their target price on Accenture from $352.00 to $365.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Wednesday, September 18th. Finally, Guggenheim increased their price target on Accenture from $380.00 to $395.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Friday, September 27th. Ten investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and thirteen have assigned a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $368.23.

Accenture Stock Up 0.7 %

Shares of ACN stock opened at $361.29 on Tuesday. The company’s 50 day moving average is $356.57 and its 200 day moving average is $329.61. The firm has a market cap of $225.86 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 31.61, a PEG ratio of 3.14 and a beta of 1.25. Accenture plc has a 52-week low of $278.69 and a 52-week high of $387.51.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last released its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, September 26th. The information technology services provider reported $2.79 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $2.78 by $0.01. Accenture had a return on equity of 26.83% and a net margin of 11.20%. The firm had revenue of $16.41 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $16.37 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the company posted $2.71 EPS. The business’s revenue for the quarter was up 2.6% compared to the same quarter last year. Analysts anticipate that Accenture plc will post 12.77 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Accenture Increases Dividend

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, November 15th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, October 10th were issued a $1.48 dividend. This is a boost from Accenture’s previous quarterly dividend of $1.29. This represents a $5.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.64%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, October 10th. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 51.79%.

Accenture declared that its Board of Directors has approved a stock buyback plan on Thursday, September 26th that authorizes the company to repurchase $4.00 billion in shares. This repurchase authorization authorizes the information technology services provider to repurchase up to 1.8% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares repurchase plans are often a sign that the company’s leadership believes its stock is undervalued.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other news, insider Angela Beatty sold 673 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, October 22nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $372.18, for a total transaction of $250,477.14. Following the transaction, the insider now directly owns 5,650 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $2,102,817. This represents a 10.64 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Also, CFO Kathleen R. Mcclure sold 5,090 shares of the stock in a transaction on Thursday, October 17th. The shares were sold at an average price of $373.22, for a total value of $1,899,689.80. Following the sale, the chief financial officer now owns 38,825 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $14,490,266.50. This represents a 11.59 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 36,298 shares of company stock worth $13,372,661 in the last 90 days. 0.07% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

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.