Kingswood Wealth Advisors LLC Decreases Stake in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Kingswood Wealth Advisors LLC decreased its position in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 59.9% during the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The fund owned 1,847 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after selling 2,755 shares during the quarter. Kingswood Wealth Advisors LLC’s holdings in Accenture were worth $650,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also recently modified their holdings of the company. Schrum Private Wealth Management LLC lifted its stake in shares of Accenture by 78.6% in the 3rd 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 purchasing an additional 5,038 shares during the last quarter. MQS Management LLC bought a new stake in Accenture in the third quarter worth $1,040,000. Concurrent Investment Advisors LLC increased its position in 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 acquiring an additional 14,724 shares during the last quarter. M&G PLC raised 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 acquiring an additional 74,438 shares during the period. Finally, Radnor Capital Management LLC lifted its holdings in shares of Accenture by 21.6% in the 3rd quarter. Radnor Capital Management LLC now owns 22,131 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $7,823,000 after acquiring an additional 3,930 shares during the last quarter. 75.14% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several analysts have issued reports on the stock. The Goldman Sachs Group raised shares of Accenture from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and raised their price objective for the stock from $370.00 to $420.00 in a research note on Friday, December 6th. BNP Paribas cut Accenture from an “outperform” rating to a “neutral” rating and set a $375.00 price objective for the company. in a report on Wednesday, October 30th. Piper Sandler lifted their target price on Accenture from $422.00 to $429.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Thursday, December 19th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. upped their price target on shares of Accenture from $370.00 to $396.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Monday, December 16th. Finally, StockNews.com raised shares of Accenture from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report on Monday, January 13th. Eight analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and sixteen have given a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, the company has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $383.74.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other Accenture news, General Counsel Joel Unruch sold 4,750 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction dated Friday, January 24th. The stock was sold at an average price of $362.78, for a total transaction of $1,723,205.00. Following the completion of the sale, the general counsel now owns 20,526 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $7,446,422.28. The trade was a 18.79 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this link. Also, COO John F. Walsh sold 2,500 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Thursday, January 23rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $361.09, for a total value of $902,725.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief operating officer now directly owns 19,737 shares in the company, valued at $7,126,833.33. This represents a 11.24 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 16,446 shares of company stock worth $5,852,848 in the last three months. Corporate insiders own 0.02% of the company’s stock.

Accenture Trading Down 0.9 %

NYSE ACN opened at $375.13 on Thursday. Accenture plc has a 52 week low of $278.69 and a 52 week high of $387.51. The company has a 50 day moving average price of $358.27 and a 200 day moving average price of $349.02. The company has a quick ratio of 1.47, a current ratio of 1.47 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17. The firm has a market cap of $234.75 billion, a PE ratio of 31.47, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.20 and a beta of 1.24.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, December 19th. The information technology services provider reported $3.59 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $3.43 by $0.16. Accenture had a return on equity of 26.91% and a net margin of 11.41%. The firm had revenue of $17.69 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $17.15 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business posted $3.27 EPS. The business’s revenue for the quarter was up 9.0% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, sell-side analysts forecast that Accenture plc will post 12.69 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Accenture Announces Dividend

The business 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 $1.48 dividend. This represents a $5.92 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.58%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, January 16th. Accenture’s payout ratio is currently 49.66%.

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.