Second Line Capital LLC Makes New Investment in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Second Line Capital LLC purchased a new position in shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) during the 3rd quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund purchased 653 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock, valued at approximately $231,000.

Several other large investors also recently bought and sold shares of the company. Morse Asset Management Inc purchased a new position in Accenture in the 3rd quarter valued at about $25,000. Unique Wealth Strategies LLC acquired a new position in shares of Accenture in the second quarter worth about $26,000. MidAtlantic Capital Management Inc. acquired a new stake in Accenture during the 3rd quarter valued at approximately $30,000. Mowery & Schoenfeld Wealth Management LLC raised its position in shares of Accenture by 607.1% in the 3rd quarter. Mowery & Schoenfeld Wealth Management LLC now owns 99 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $35,000 after purchasing an additional 85 shares in the last quarter. Finally, RPg Family Wealth Advisory LLC bought a new stake in shares of Accenture in the third quarter worth $39,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

Accenture Price Performance

Shares of ACN opened at $362.98 on Wednesday. Accenture plc has a one year low of $278.69 and a one year high of $387.51. The company has a market capitalization of $226.92 billion, a P/E ratio of 31.76, a PEG ratio of 3.22 and a beta of 1.24. The business’s 50 day simple moving average is $360.26 and its 200-day simple moving average is $333.42.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last released its earnings results on Thursday, September 26th. The information technology services provider reported $2.79 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.78 by $0.01. Accenture had a net margin of 11.20% and a return on equity of 26.83%. The firm had revenue of $16.41 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $16.37 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business earned $2.71 EPS. The business’s quarterly revenue was up 2.6% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, sell-side analysts anticipate that Accenture plc will post 12.76 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Accenture Increases Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, November 15th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, October 10th were paid a $1.48 dividend. This is a positive change from Accenture’s previous quarterly dividend of $1.29. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, October 10th. This represents a $5.92 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.63%. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio is currently 51.79%.

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

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of equities analysts recently commented on the company. Mizuho lifted their price target on Accenture from $352.00 to $365.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research note on Wednesday, September 18th. Robert W. Baird reissued a “neutral” rating and set a $370.00 target price on shares of Accenture in a report on Tuesday, December 3rd. Citigroup boosted their price objective on shares of Accenture from $350.00 to $405.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Tuesday, September 17th. BMO Capital Markets raised their target price on shares of Accenture from $380.00 to $390.00 and gave the stock a “market perform” rating in a report on Friday, September 27th. Finally, StockNews.com upgraded Accenture from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report on Monday. Eight analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and fifteen have issued a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $372.09.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 9,000 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, October 21st. The stock was sold at an average price of $376.16, for a total transaction of $3,385,440.00. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 20,324 shares in the company, valued at approximately $7,645,075.84. The trade was a 30.69 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is accessible through the SEC website. Also, insider Angela Beatty sold 673 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, October 22nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $372.18, for a total value of $250,477.14. Following the transaction, the insider now directly owns 5,650 shares in the company, valued at $2,102,817. The trade was a 10.64 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 36,298 shares of company stock valued at $13,372,661 over the last ninety days. 0.07% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

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.