Arlington Trust Co LLC Raises Stake in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Arlington Trust Co LLC lifted its position in shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 79.8% during the 4th quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The institutional investor owned 847 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after buying an additional 376 shares during the quarter. Arlington Trust Co LLC’s holdings in Accenture were worth $298,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Several other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also recently bought and sold shares of ACN. UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC increased its stake in shares of Accenture by 378.9% during the 3rd quarter. UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC now owns 5,491,736 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $1,941,219,000 after acquiring an additional 4,345,039 shares during the last quarter. Swedbank AB grew its holdings in Accenture by 47.5% in the fourth quarter. Swedbank AB now owns 3,763,690 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $1,324,029,000 after purchasing an additional 1,212,011 shares during the period. Assenagon Asset Management S.A. raised its stake in Accenture by 2,666.5% during the fourth quarter. Assenagon Asset Management S.A. now owns 715,219 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $251,607,000 after purchasing an additional 689,366 shares during the period. Holocene Advisors LP acquired a new position in shares of Accenture in the 3rd quarter valued at $204,895,000. Finally, International Assets Investment Management LLC grew its stake in shares of Accenture by 37,788.5% during the 3rd quarter. International Assets Investment Management LLC now owns 510,358 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $180,401,000 after buying an additional 509,011 shares during the period. 75.14% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other Accenture news, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 8,793 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction 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 sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 11,858 shares in the company, valued at approximately $4,677,625.26. This trade represents a 42.58 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this link. Also, CAO Melissa A. Burgum sold 1,487 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, January 21st. The stock was sold at an average price of $354.54, for a total transaction of $527,200.98. Following the transaction, the chief accounting officer now owns 9,247 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $3,278,431.38. This represents a 13.85 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 22,280 shares of company stock worth $8,316,190 over the last quarter. 0.02% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of brokerages recently weighed in on ACN. Wolfe Research upgraded Accenture from a “peer perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $425.00 target price on the stock in a report on Wednesday, January 8th. Morgan Stanley lifted their price objective on Accenture from $335.00 to $380.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Friday, January 31st. The Goldman Sachs Group upgraded shares of Accenture from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and raised their price target for the company from $370.00 to $420.00 in a report on Friday, December 6th. UBS Group boosted their price objective on shares of Accenture from $450.00 to $455.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, December 20th. Finally, Robert W. Baird reissued a “neutral” rating and issued a $370.00 target price on shares of Accenture in a research note on Tuesday, December 3rd. Eight investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and sixteen have issued a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $387.22.

Accenture Stock Down 0.3 %

NYSE:ACN opened at $386.04 on Monday. The stock has a 50-day simple moving average of $362.30 and a 200 day simple moving average of $352.18. Accenture plc has a one year low of $278.69 and a one year high of $398.35. The company has a market capitalization of $241.58 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 32.39, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.44 and a beta of 1.24. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17, a quick ratio of 1.47 and a current ratio of 1.47.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, December 19th. The information technology services provider reported $3.59 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.43 by $0.16. The business had revenue of $17.69 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $17.15 billion. Accenture had a return on equity of 26.91% and a net margin of 11.41%. The business’s quarterly revenue was up 9.0% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the business earned $3.27 EPS. Sell-side analysts predict that Accenture plc will post 12.73 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Accenture Announces Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, February 14th. Investors of record on Thursday, January 16th will be given a dividend of $1.48 per share. This represents a $5.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.53%. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, January 16th. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio is presently 49.66%.

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.