Eagle Bay Advisors LLC Cuts Stock Holdings in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Eagle Bay Advisors LLC lessened its holdings in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 3.0% during the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The firm owned 1,053 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after selling 33 shares during the period. Eagle Bay Advisors LLC’s holdings in Accenture were worth $370,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other hedge funds have also made changes to their positions in ACN. Schrum Private Wealth Management LLC grew its stake in shares of Accenture by 78.6% in the third quarter. Schrum Private Wealth Management LLC now owns 11,448 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $4,047,000 after buying an additional 5,038 shares in the last quarter. MQS Management LLC acquired a new stake in Accenture in the third quarter valued at approximately $1,040,000. Concurrent Investment Advisors LLC raised its stake in shares of Accenture by 70.6% during the third quarter. Concurrent Investment Advisors LLC now owns 35,591 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $12,581,000 after purchasing an additional 14,724 shares during the period. M&G PLC boosted its stake in shares of Accenture by 34.1% in the third quarter. M&G PLC now owns 292,808 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $103,361,000 after purchasing an additional 74,438 shares during the period. Finally, BRITISH COLUMBIA INVESTMENT MANAGEMENT Corp grew its holdings in Accenture by 18.7% during the 2nd quarter. BRITISH COLUMBIA INVESTMENT MANAGEMENT Corp now owns 172,199 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $52,247,000 after purchasing an additional 27,168 shares in the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other Accenture news, CEO Ryoji Sekido sold 3,191 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, November 4th. The stock was sold at an average price of $343.70, for a total transaction of $1,096,746.70. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 6 shares in the company, valued at approximately $2,062.20. The trade was a 99.81 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Also, CAO Melissa A. Burgum sold 458 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, October 17th. The stock was sold at an average price of $373.25, for a total transaction of $170,948.50. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief accounting officer now directly owns 9,777 shares in the company, valued at approximately $3,649,265.25. This trade represents a 4.47 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 36,673 shares of company stock worth $13,507,099 in the last three months. 0.02% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Analyst Ratings Changes

ACN has been the topic of several recent analyst reports. Piper Sandler Companies reiterated a “neutral” rating and issued a $329.00 price target on shares of Accenture in a research note on Friday, September 20th. Bank of America raised their price target on shares of Accenture from $365.00 to $388.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, September 27th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. upped their price target on shares of Accenture from $370.00 to $396.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Monday, December 16th. UBS Group upped their target price on shares of Accenture from $450.00 to $455.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, December 20th. Finally, Royal Bank of Canada lifted their price target on Accenture from $377.00 to $389.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research note on Friday, September 27th. Eight analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and sixteen have assigned a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Accenture has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $385.04.

Accenture Stock Down 0.3 %

ACN traded down $1.20 during trading on Monday, reaching $348.59. The stock had a trading volume of 638,618 shares, compared to its average volume of 2,417,296. Accenture plc has a 1-year low of $278.69 and a 1-year high of $387.51. The firm has a market capitalization of $218.14 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 30.50, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.24. The stock has a 50 day moving average of $357.82 and a two-hundred day moving average of $344.30.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last released its earnings results on Thursday, December 19th. The information technology services provider reported $3.59 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.43 by $0.16. The firm had revenue of $17.69 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $17.15 billion. Accenture had a return on equity of 26.83% and a net margin of 11.20%. Accenture’s revenue was up 9.0% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the company earned $3.27 earnings per share. On average, research analysts forecast that Accenture plc will post 12.74 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Accenture announced that its Board of Directors has initiated a stock repurchase program on Thursday, September 26th that allows the company to repurchase $4.00 billion in 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 generally an indication that the company’s management believes its shares are undervalued.

Accenture Dividend Announcement

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, February 14th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, January 16th will be given a dividend of $1.48 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, January 16th. This represents a $5.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.70%. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 49.66%.

Accenture Company 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.