Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) Shares Sold by Boston Family Office LLC

Boston Family Office LLC lowered its holdings in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 6.7% during the fourth quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The fund owned 3,121 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after selling 225 shares during the period. Boston Family Office LLC’s holdings in Accenture were worth $1,098,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Several other institutional investors also recently made changes to their positions in ACN. Morse Asset Management Inc bought a new position in Accenture during the 3rd quarter worth $25,000. FPC Investment Advisory Inc. grew its position in shares of Accenture by 62.2% during the fourth quarter. FPC Investment Advisory Inc. now owns 73 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $28,000 after acquiring an additional 28 shares during the last quarter. Kohmann Bosshard Financial Services LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Accenture in the 4th quarter worth about $30,000. POM Investment Strategies LLC boosted its stake in Accenture by 64.2% during the 4th quarter. POM Investment Strategies LLC now owns 87 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $31,000 after purchasing an additional 34 shares during the period. Finally, Retirement Wealth Solutions LLC bought a new position in Accenture in the 4th quarter worth about $34,000. 75.14% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several equities analysts have recently issued reports on the company. Mizuho reduced their price objective on Accenture from $428.00 to $398.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research report on Wednesday, March 19th. Piper Sandler lowered their price target on Accenture from $396.00 to $364.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a report on Thursday, March 20th. Royal Bank of Canada reduced their price objective on shares of Accenture from $399.00 to $392.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a report on Friday, March 21st. Stifel Nicolaus dropped their price target on shares of Accenture from $390.00 to $380.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research report on Wednesday, February 26th. Finally, Morgan Stanley decreased their price objective on shares of Accenture from $380.00 to $372.00 and set an “equal weight” rating for the company in a report on Monday, March 17th. Eight research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, fifteen have assigned a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, Accenture currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $378.23.

Accenture Stock Performance

Accenture stock opened at $313.50 on Wednesday. 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 $196.35 billion, a P/E ratio of 26.30, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.24. Accenture plc has a fifty-two week low of $278.69 and a fifty-two week high of $398.35. The firm’s 50 day simple moving average is $353.32 and its 200-day simple moving average is $355.55.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last released its earnings results on Thursday, March 20th. The information technology services provider reported $2.82 earnings per share (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 company had revenue of $16.70 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $16.64 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company earned $2.77 earnings per share. The company’s revenue for the quarter was up 5.7% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, equities research analysts predict that Accenture plc will post 12.73 EPS for the current year.

Accenture Announces Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, May 15th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, April 10th will be issued 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 dividend payout ratio is 48.89%.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other Accenture news, CAO Melissa A. Burgum sold 1,487 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction on Tuesday, January 21st. The shares were sold at an average price of $354.54, for a total transaction of $527,200.98. Following the completion of the sale, the chief accounting officer now owns 9,247 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $3,278,431.38. This trade represents a 13.85 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 2,497 shares of the stock in a transaction on Friday, January 17th. The stock was sold at an average price of $354.48, for a total value of $885,136.56. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 28,866 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $10,232,419.68. This represents a 7.96 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last three months, insiders sold 21,905 shares of company stock worth $8,181,753. 0.02% of the stock is 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.