Anchor Investment Management LLC Grows Position in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Anchor Investment Management LLC grew its position in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 8.4% in the 3rd quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The fund owned 6,135 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after purchasing an additional 474 shares during the period. Anchor Investment Management LLC’s holdings in Accenture were worth $2,169,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Morse Asset Management Inc purchased a new position in shares of Accenture in the 3rd quarter worth about $25,000. Unique Wealth Strategies LLC purchased a new position in Accenture in the second quarter valued at about $26,000. MidAtlantic Capital Management Inc. bought a new position in shares of Accenture during the 3rd quarter valued at approximately $30,000. Mowery & Schoenfeld Wealth Management LLC raised its holdings 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 worth $35,000 after purchasing an additional 85 shares during the period. Finally, RPg Family Wealth Advisory LLC bought a new position in Accenture during the third quarter valued at $39,000. 75.14% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other Accenture news, CEO Ryoji Sekido sold 3,191 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, November 4th. The stock was sold at an average price of $343.70, for a total value of $1,096,746.70. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 6 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $2,062.20. The trade was a 99.81 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. Also, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 9,000 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, October 21st. The shares were sold at an average price of $376.16, for a total value of $3,385,440.00. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 20,324 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $7,645,075.84. This trade represents a 30.69 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have 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 company insiders.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of research analysts have recently commented on the company. Susquehanna upped their price target on Accenture from $350.00 to $360.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Friday, September 27th. BMO Capital Markets increased their target price on shares of Accenture from $380.00 to $390.00 and gave the stock a “market perform” rating in a research report on Friday, September 27th. Barclays boosted their price target on shares of Accenture from $350.00 to $415.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Monday, September 30th. Robert W. Baird reaffirmed a “neutral” rating and issued a $370.00 price objective on shares of Accenture in a report on Tuesday, December 3rd. Finally, The Goldman Sachs Group raised shares of Accenture from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and boosted their target price for the company from $370.00 to $420.00 in a report on Friday, December 6th. Eight investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and fifteen have assigned a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, Accenture currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $373.32.

Accenture Stock Down 1.0 %

ACN opened at $360.24 on Friday. The business’s fifty day simple moving average is $360.63 and its 200 day simple moving average is $334.07. Accenture plc has a 52 week low of $278.69 and a 52 week high of $387.51. The stock has a market cap of $225.21 billion, a PE ratio of 31.52, a P/E/G ratio of 3.22 and a beta of 1.24.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, September 26th. The information technology services provider reported $2.79 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.78 by $0.01. The company had revenue of $16.41 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $16.37 billion. Accenture had a return on equity of 26.83% and a net margin of 11.20%. Accenture’s revenue for the quarter was up 2.6% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period last year, the firm posted $2.71 EPS. As a group, equities analysts anticipate that Accenture plc will post 12.76 earnings per share for the current year.

Accenture announced that its board has initiated a stock buyback program 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 purchase up to 1.8% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares repurchase programs are usually a sign that the company’s board of directors believes its shares are undervalued.

Accenture Increases Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, November 15th. Investors of record on Thursday, October 10th were issued a dividend of $1.48 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, October 10th. This represents a $5.92 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.64%. This is a positive change from Accenture’s previous quarterly dividend of $1.29. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 51.79%.

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.